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Vissi d'arte

~ Living retired, and nourished by the arts

Vissi d'arte

Monthly Archives: December 2014

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Holiday Cooking

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

The Christmas season and the Winter Solstice are in many cultures a time for feasting and conviviality. In French Canada, this was called “Le temps des Fêtes” and covered what is commonly known as the Twelve Days of Christmas, that is to say Christmas Day to Epiphany.

The celebrations started with the traditional Réveillon, after Midnight Mass, and lasted until January 6th. My childhood memories of this time are wonderful food (and wonderful leftovers). The highlights were the traditional Tourtière, the roasted turkey, the Ragoût de Pattes and the Ragoût de Boulettes. During those 12 days there was also roast ham and roast beef too. The meals were usually festive occasions with relatives coming to visit. This was just about the only time of the year that my father would buy liquor: port, sherry (usually South African) some brandy, a bottle ofrye and a case of beer. Wine was only in the form of port or sherry and usuFeatured imageally consumed as an apéritif. I was in my late teens, I think, when table wine, both red and white, became part of these meals.

While tourtière traces its origins to ancient Mesopotamia, in Québec it evolved from European variants, but used “tourtes” a passenger pigeon once abundant but now extinct. As a result other meats came to be used, most notably pork, veal or beef, and often some wild game… hare, venison, moose, etc.  The game was not the dominant ingredient (usually pork) but enhanced the flavour and perhaps subtly honoured the memory of the tourte. My partner Merv learned to make tourtières from my mother, and tourtières are obligatory at this time of the year.

The traditional ragoût was made from pork trotters although my mother preferred to make hers with pork hocks, to which she would add a couple of token trotters. The spices used in the ragoût were similar to those used in tourtière… allspice, cloves, cinnamon maybe, and some dried sage and dried savory. A ragoût of meatballs was similarly flavoured, although meatballs were sometimes simply added to the Ragoût de pattes. I vaguely remember the addition of dumplings to these ragoûts… bigger ones called “grand-pères” and smaller ones called “grand-mères,” but these were generally omitted by my mother.

There were ordinary fruit pies too, especially raisin pies, maybe some apple pies, fruit cake, date squares, fancy cookies. We freely adopted other traditions of cranberry sauce, and mincemeat pies.

Nowadays, however, we still have a couple of tourtières, but I make the ragoûts every two or three years because they are so rich, and we just don’t eat like that anymore. This year for Christmas we made a turkey gallantine, stuffed with layered vegetables. Today, in preparation for the New Year’s Day dinner, I am making Carbonnades de Boeuf (Julia Child’s recipe) always better the next day. But the memory of the feasts of Christmas-past are savoured with a grateful smile.

Posted by Roger H. Boulet | Filed under Christmas food, food, tourtière

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On Christmas Carols

30 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by Roger H. Boulet in Uncategorized

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Christmas Carols

Every year, by this time, I am inclined to put away the Christmas carol CDs that I have collected over the years.  While commercial establishments start playing Christmas music (or Christmas muzak!) right after Halloween, I tend to wait as long as I can, and this is usually about the second or third week of December. Then, I play this music virtually exclusively for a couple of weeks.

As a child, I remember we would start to practice Christmas carols with the coming of Advent, the first being “Venez Divin Messie!” — so full of anticipation, hope and longing. As I was going to grade school in a French Canadian community, most of the carols were French ones, although we learned to sing “Silent Night” in German, and I remember a number of carols were sung in Latin, such as “Adeste Fideles.” We sang a number of these carols during Midnight Mass, which always began with the best tenor of the choir singing “Minuit, Chrétiens.”

Christmas has inspired some of the most beautiful music in the western tradition over the centuries. And although  today I am more inclined to celebrate the Winter Solstice than the Christian festival, Christmas carols continue to be part of the seasonal celebration.

About 30 years ago, when I started to collect CDs, among my first Christmas carol purchases were the two albums by Andrew Parrot’s Taverner Consort singers and players. The first is The Carol Album: Seven Centuries of Christmas Music (1989). The second album by these performers came out in 2000. There were others, such as A Renaissance Christmas Celebration with the Waverly Consort, all part of period instrument performance and practice which has had a special place in my musical preferences over the years.

I seem to add one or two CDs of Christmas carols to my collection every year, the most recent being the extraordinary Surrounded by Angels by the Ensemble Galilei. As the gentle reader will have gathered by now, I have no interest in renditions of Christmas carols by popular singers, with the possible exception of “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby. Even the productions of opera singers singing Christmas carols does not find favour with me, with the possible exception of “Minuit, Chrétiens.” The version I remember was sung by Richard Verreau.

There is other Christmas music I play at this time of the year. Certainly Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and various Christmastide cantatas are played, beginning with his Advent Cantatas. The performances by the Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists (conducted by John Eliot Gardiner) of this extraordinary music are among the best available.

It is also at about this time that I play Berlioz’ “L’Enfance du Christ” at least once, before putting away all of the Christmas music away for another year.


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On retirement

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classical music, cooking, the arts, visual art

I was fortunate in that I did not retire suddenly, therefore unprepared. Even before my last full five years of employment, I had survived doing contract work for public art galleries and museums in Western Canada. I even did a bit of teaching, which was a learning experience. It probably enriched me more than my students.

Throughout my life, the arts have nourished me, most especially the visual arts, classical music, and the culinary arts. Nature and its proximity have always been important. I have sought its solace and am blessed in that I live in a beautiful valley, with orchards and vineyards. amidst ancient mountains. I have also been blessed with an appreciation of good food, thanks to my parents and perhaps to my French Canadian heritage. My sympathetic partner of many years, Merv, has shared this particular interest, to our mutual delight. All these things are the stuff of daily life to me… and bring me peace and tranquility.

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Posted by Roger H. Boulet | Filed under Uncategorized

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