My New Year's resolution this year was to not talk about food as much. Note to self: Do not make New Year's resolutions swearing off foodie-speak when you are about to spend a term in France, the food capital of the world. That New Year's resolution went out the window faster than you can say "croissant."
I will say that it came as a surprise to me that the people I learned the most from about French food were not restaurateurs or chefs, but rather two lovely Toulousains named Francois and Odile, my host parents. Francois and Odile are no master chefs Francois worked in the aeronautics industry and Odile was a schoolteacher but they knew their stuff about food, and they took a special interest in helping me hone my French culinary knowledge. They took me to the markets, showed me maps of all the cheese-producing regions of France (read: showed me a map of France) and we even had this dinner game where I had to guess the name of each variety on our nightly cheese platter.
So this week, I'm bringing a bit of France back to Dartmouth (and sending a shoutout to my hosts, who have been known to insert the text of DDS Detective into Google translate) in the form of this dish called "Salade au Chvre Chaude" that I came to absolutely adore in Toulouse. I know what you're thinking. It's a salad. But it's not just any salad think melty cheese toast (I took some liberties with the variety of cheese, as you can't exactly find fresh goat cheese in Collis these days). It's a balance of sweet and salty flavors that definitely doesn't fall into the traditional salad category.
- In Collis, put some salad greens in a plastic container, and put some olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a salad dressing cup.
- Grab a piece of Collis bread, a slice of Swiss cheese from the sandwich line and a packet of mustard from the fridge.
- Put the cheese on the toast and send it through the toaster (make sure you put the levels on 8 or higher to make sure it melts).
- While the bread is toasting, squirt the packet of mustard into the balsamic vinegar and olive oil mixture and add to salad greens.
- Grab the toast with melted cheese after it's done toasting (just wait for it to slide down it works, I promise!) and put it on top of the salad.
- Drizzle the entire thing with honey.
So yes, I did have an incredible time in France, but after all is said and done, it's good to be back DDS Detective just doesn't translate well into French.
