Repas Anglophone

In theory we are supposed to have a theme meal every month at the foyer where I live. I don't think we've had one since October, but someone decided that March would be the month for the English themed meal. Being the only American here, I automatically get grouped with the English girls, so instead of being an "English" meal it was an "Anglophone" meal.

We decided on a pretty basic menu because no matter what we suggested we knew we wouldn't change the opinion of the Frenchies that English food is bad and that American cuisine consists solely of hamburgers. It was also a bit of a challenge to find things that could be produced in mass (for 40 people) and still taste good.

The Menu
Starter: Caesar salad
Main dish: Roasted chicken (roast beef being too stereotypically English) with roasted potatoes and Yorkshire pudding
Dessert: Apple Crumble with creme Anglaise and Rice Krispies Treats (my idea!!)

On the day of the meal we had to go down to the kitchen at 8AM(!!) to help the chef make our meal. Since the biggest meal of the day in the cafeteria is lunch (people who work in the neighborhood come here to eat) they were really busy preparing for that and so we donned our aprons and hair nets (not kidding) and were quickly put to work. I cut up baguettes into tiny pieces to make croutons. No fewer than 3 of the chefs warned me not to chop my fingers off with the huge knife. Jo peeled potatoes, Jenny worked on the Yorkshire pudding and then Jo and I were made to peel 4kg of apples for the crumble. The chef demonstrated a "quick, simple" way to peel and core the apples. He basically peeled the whole thing in one shot without stopping and didn't understand why we were laughing. we explained that he made it look really easy but that we wouldn't be able to do it. He said "don't you guys ever cook?" More laughter.

After we finally finished peeling the apples he cooked them and I helped him lay the crumble dough on top of the apples. The dough was delicious and we couldn't stop eating it when he wasn't looking. I'm pretty sure we violated a lot of kitchen rules that day, as ate everything that we were preparing. After the crumble was put in the oven to bake, we tackled the salad. Following the chef's orders we sorted the joli pieces of lettuce into the salad bowls and discarded the pieces that were pas joli. The chefs had all finished their work and left us to finish our salad as they ate lunch. Luckily they had left us the bowl with the leftover dough to use as a garbage bin for the ugly pieces of lettuce that we weren't suitable for the salad. When they weren't looking we took out all the dough and ate it as we prepared our salad. It sounds gross but it was really yummy.

We finished almost everything by 11AM and only had to come back at 6 to make the salad dressing and the Rice Krispies treats.

To make an already long story short, the dinner went well and the Frenchies liked the Rice Krispies treats! When they first heard the ingredients they were pretty weirded out ("you want to make a dessert using cereal? and with marshmallows? are the marshmallow inside the rice krispies?"). I explained to no fewer than 10 people how to make them and I can't tell you how happy I was when the chef said to me "C'est pas mauvais!" (it's not bad!)