Well, another roller coaster year has pulled into the station at the end of the ride. While i cannot personally remember a worse December, there were also some lovely highlights of the year, which - as always - centered around friends, family, and food. So to close 2010, i'm going to share with you two of my favorite recipes, the making and sharing of which have become time-honored annual rituals of near-religious proportions and define the term "comfort food" for me. Of course, like all comfort foods, especially French ones, boeuf bourgignon and bûche de noël are labor intensive to make, but for me, a large part of the "comfort" aspect is achieved from the therapeutic effect of losing myself in the culinary process.
Bœuf Bourgignon
Bœuf Bourgignon
Of the two traditions, the newer one (of five or six years) is serving bœuf bourgignon on New Year's Eve. This is hands down my favorite French dish - a popular pick akin, i suppose, to loving apple pie as a favorite American dish. My mother would make it on the rare occasion when i was growing up, but i don't know that it was really a favorite of hers and in any case, i don't remember rhapsodizing about it until i first had it in 1992 at La Crèmerie-Restaurant Polidor in Paris. Le Polidor is a pretty famous spot and was a favorite of James Joyce and Jack Kerouac, as well as me (but this particular fact is not mentioned in the guidebooks); it's tucked away on a tiny side street in the latin quarter, identifiable primarily by the line of people waiting to get in for some of the best (and certainly most reasonably priced) traditional French cuisine in Paris. The tables are pretty much all communal, which is one of the things i actually adore about it, but which has freaked out American friends or family who are used to having acres of space and so-called privacy. What i find interesting about such preconceptions of "privacy" is that i have generally found that when dining in Europe, despite being necessarily packed in like a sardine, one is rarely subjected to the forced eavesdropping that occurs routinely in the States coming from that deafeningly loud group five tables away that just can't help but share with the entire restaurant the hilarity of their incredibly inane antics. I attribute this difference to the loss here in the U.S. of a fine tradition we, too, once had, referred to as "manners," "discretion," and "consideration for others" - or more simply put among some parents I have had occasion to overhear: "indoor voices" (mourning the loss of this tradition is referred to as "being a total curmudgeon").
Anyway, back to le bœuf. The origins of bœuf bourgignon (originally, bœuf à la bourgignonne, aka beef burgundy) aren't that mysterious - it's a peasant dish that came about when some enterprising Burgundian marinated what was likely some pretty tough/nearly inedible beef in a decent local vintage and a bouquet garni, some carrots, and garlic for a day or two, then added a bit of bacon, boiled the whole thing down into a tasty stew, and tossed in some little onions and mushrooms at the end. Interestingly, despite being elevated to haute cuisine, first by Auguste Escoffier (chef of the original Ritz in Paris, and referred to as "the Emperor of Chefs" by Kaiser Wilhelm II), and later internationalized by Julia Child, the ingredients and the process for making beef burgundy haven't really changed all that much. Maybe that's part of the notion of classic comfort foods - the depths and simplicity of the original combine into a culinary essential truth that withstands the harsh tests of time, such that it is no longer just that the dish itself is satisfying, but its essential underlying perfection also provides emotional solace. To go overboard with the analogy, maybe comfort foods are like little stepping stones in the ever-changing river of our daily lives.
