Quiche, croissants and crème fraiche were not on le menu at Tuesday’s French cooking lesson in the Health Professions building, but attendees did not leave with empty stomachs.
Students, faculty and guests learned about the culture of food and drink in France and got the chance to test their culinary skills at the event organized by the French and Spanish clubs, Latinos Unidos, the nutrition club and T.H.R.E.A.D.S.
The lesson was the first in a series of six multicultural sessions planned for the spring semester.
Creating awareness of different cultures is one of the main goals of the lessons, said Norma Rosas Mayen, assistant professor of Spanish and a coordinator of the event.
“We are trying to introduce the American family to different tastes, different textures, different flavors and more multicultural foods,” Rosas Mayen said.
Although the cooking lessons were first offered in the spring of 2010, a grant from the Southwestern Indiana Area Health Education Council last fall has helped cover the costs of food and paper supplies, said Lesa Cagle, USI’s interim director of faculty development.
Participants prepared fresh fruit tarts before enjoying a meal of roast pork in plum sauce, lavender potatoes and mint herb tea.
“I’m not new to foreign food, so that’s why I was excited to come learn the preparation of it,” said sophomore Spanish major Brian Lewallen, who has made several trips to Belgium.
“Plus my girlfriend said I should,” he added.
The dishes were chosen from France’s southern Provence region, whose cuisine was highly influenced by its Moroccan neighbors to the southwest, Rosas Mayen said.
Sophomore sports management student J.J. Johnson got his first taste of French cuisine on a high school trip to Paris.
“Getting to cook, it is a new and different experience,” Johnson said. “I learned a lot about how important bread is.”
Rivaling bread in importance are sauces, said Carol MacKay, associate professor of French.
“The saucier (in a restaurant) has to be very adept,” MacKay said.
The restaurant as an eating establishment has origins in the French Revolution after guilds were abolished, and in France they offer full meals lasting three to four hours.
“You would not go to a restaurant in France and order just a drink or just a salad,” MacKay said.
For this type of refreshment, one would seek a café. Derived from the French word for coffee, cafés often feature terrace seating and a relaxed environment.
Although participants learned that coffee did not become a mainstay in France until the discovery of the Americas where it was grown, philosopher Voltaire was said to have drunk about 40 cups a day, MacKay said.
Though this tendency would most likely be ill advised today, the concept of the café has traveled across French borders.
Teaching how other cultures have influenced our own was one goal in organizing the cooking lessons, Cagle said.
