We have a lovely balcony that looks over the garden from our living room and I had pictured lots of lunches outside, barbecues in the evening and the late summer sunshine sending me a light brown colour before winter sets in. I am really quite looking forward to a proper winter here, as the mountains around us turn white and the trees in our garden become heavy with snow. I'm just not ready for it yet. We left behind grey drizzle in Scotland and I was hoping for a little burst of summer before hibernating begins in earnest.
A week after our arrival and today the sun has finally obliged. It is 26 degrees outside, and I've just had to move indoors after getting too hot eating lunch out in the sunshine. I even had breakfast on the balcony, looking up to the Jura mountains.
The temperature is set to be around 30 degrees at the weekend, which is almost a little too hot, if I'm being picky.
Yesterday wasn't too bad either, and Andy and I barbecued our dinner, as much for the novelty as anything else. I also got a little carried away reading cookbooks during the afternoon, so we ended up having three courses for no particular reason. A very French starter of Anchoiade served on toasted croutons, followed by homemade burgers and salad, and a plum tart for dessert. The plum tart was made on demand for Andy, who jumped into the car on Wednesday evening saying: 'Everyone is fasting tomorrow so you have to make plum tart.' The full explanation makes a little more sense. Thursday was a local holiday in Geneva, called jeune genevois (meaning Genevan fast). Historically, people fasted on this day, as our friend Wikipedia explains:
Geneva was a cradle of Protestantism and the Reformation. There was a Geneva-wide fast in the beginning of October 1567 as a sign of friendship with Protestants undergoing persecution in Lyon, France and this was most likely the first Jeûne genevois (Genevan fast). Five years later, news of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and the slaughter of several thousand Huguenots beginning on 24 August 1572 triggered a fast throughout Geneva on the following 3 September, which could be why the date of later yearly fasts was shifted back by almost month.
By 1640, through sway of the reformed cantons, the fast had become yearly and was carried on even after the Genevan revolution of 1792. Jeûne genevois later became a patriotic holiday, symbolizing both Geneva's proud identity and its Protestantism. By the beginning of the Helvetic Republic folklore had thoroughly linked Jeûne genevois with the widely remembered St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and fasting in Geneva as the slaughter of whole Protestant families carried on throughout France.
The holiday has now largely lost its religious significance but many businesses still take the day as a holiday. So why the plum tart? This part is stil slightly unclear. It is thought that, with Genevan plums being very much in season at the moment, people would make the plum tart the night before to allow them to spend the day dedicating themselves to prayer. The tart would then be eaten at the end of the fast - but not, as we did, following two other courses. And we missed out the fasting part too...
In any case, I made a plum tart, not entirely the same as the local variety, but it turned out pretty well.
No comments:
Post a Comment