Even though the
Marchés de Noël, or Christmas markets, are typically a northern French/German tradition, the tradition has migrated through much of France. Even Nevers, petite little ville that she is, has a bustling one :) Most stores had Christmas specials, but one weekend was set aside for an actual outdoor (=frigid) Christmas market, with stalls, artisan vendors, free samples of wine, cheese, baked goods, bread, and other goodies. Our usual crowd of English- (and Spanish-) speaking assistants went, and we came home with some great buys!
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| Even the giant grocery store got festive for the holiday season! I lovingly dubbed this iteration of Father Christmas "Touchdown Santa." Patent pending. |
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| Place de la Résistance is all lit up at night |
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| Our very own Arc de Triomphe (really called La Porte de Paris), lit up for the Christmas market |
The first vendor we met was a really nice guy who sold cheese and sausages; we gathered around for free samples, and he told us that because we were pretty girls and because there were no men with us, he'd give us a 50% discount on the blue goat cheese (made from blue goats!) and
sanglier (wild boar) sausage that we bought. At that exact moment Javier, our token male Spanish assistant, walked up and was bisouing (our
franglais term for the French custom of kissing friends on both cheeks to greet them or to say goodbye) to the other girls who weren't gathered around the stall. The four of us who were there shamefacedly ignored Javi until we'd successfully paid half price for these snacks, then turned around and gave him the
bisous he was impatiently waiting for. It was a pretty funny scene :)
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| Goat Cheese Man, who insists that he's going to move to the USA to sell his artisan-made cheese because "there'd be no competition." He's got a point.... |
The next stall we visited was a wine booth; of course, as I was imbibing, one of my students approached me to say hello. He's a fourth grader, and was out exploring the market with his parents, who waved wanly as they eyed their son chatting awkwardly with a strange young woman who was double-fisting half-full wine glasses at a Christmas market. I'm sure they were actually a lot less wary than I thought they were, simply because wine drinking from a young age is so ingrained in their culture. Still, I can only imagine what bizarre ramifications that little exchange would have had in the States...
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| Alsacian specialties.....yum :) |
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| The Flavors of our Regional Terrain. Also delicious, all of them :) |
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| This man was selling churros! |
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| So of course we had to buy some :) |
There was also a man selling roasted chestnuts; despite being one of my all-time favorite Christmas songs, I've never actually tasted chestnuts roasted over an open fire! Luckily, this guy remedied that gap in my gastronomical education.
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| My friend Jess is obsessed with roasted chestnuts...and now I know why! |
At the marché de Noël I ran into the winemaker whose website I've been hired to translate. I introduced myself, we chatted about the website for a bit, and then he sent me home with a complementary bottle of his Cuvée Valentin, a nice crisp rosé blended from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir blend. I also bought a 50cl bottle of his famed
crème de cassis, or blackcurrant liqueur, which is INCREDIBLE...and also 20% alcohol by volume. Heehee :) You can add it to champagne to make a
kir royale, or to white or red wine for an
apéritif, or drizzle it over vanilla bean ice cream. It goes without saying that it didn't take long for my family to plow through that bottle :) You can see his website
here, and very soon (as soon as I finish the translation) you'll be able to check it out in English and let me know how I did!
All in all, this was a great first Christmas market experience. In our small town the market wasn't anything extravagant, but it certainly did the trick to get us all in the holiday spirit :)
