| Friday, December 18, 2020

Dear Friend, 
 
The tender blue wash of this morning’s sky shone through a veil of pale lilac, harbinger of frost and snow. 
 
“Ça va piquer fort cette nuit,” predicted Monsieur Jean-Yves, our farmer. "It’s going to freeze hard!” We have brought the cattle into the stabulations, where they can huddle together amid piles of golden straw. And yesterday, Monsieur Xavier responded to my anxious solicitude for our lemon trees by announcing that he would roll the pots into the Orangerie – like barrels, he added smugly. He isn’t overly fond of the lemon trees, with their predilection for fertilizer and being watered all summer.
 
The days have dwindled down. Monsieur Jean-Yves knocks off before five as darkness falls. Monsieur Xavier turns into la maison du haras to seek the welcome warmth of his woodstove, and an early souper with Madame Francine. There is also the comfort of his new “fauteuil,” an American-style recliner, which, he explained to me with bemused delight, works with electric buttons. And we go inside the Chateau to warm cold noses and fingers and gaze into the bright crackling of our library fire.
 
The longest night of the year is less than a week away: the winter solstice on December 21. In the olden days, before the early saints spread Christianity among the Gauls, the winter solstice was a festival of fire, staving off the darkness and cold that threatened to overtake the living world. The burning of the yuletide log brought light and warmth; it foretold the lengthening days ahead. It beseeched the sun to return. Some linguists even claim that the world “Noël,” rather than being a contraction of the church Latin “natalis deis,” or “birth of God,” derives from those distant times. In the language of ancient Gaul, Noël would be a consolidation of “noio,” meaning “new,” and “hel,” meaning sun.
 
Old customs die hard in Normandy. To the astonishment of the early 19th-century lawyer and writer, Louis de Marchangy, who observed the Christmas traditions of Normandy in 1819, the Age of Reason and the French Revolution had changed little in the rural west of France.
 
“The père de famille, accompanied by his children and his servants, fetches the cinders of last year’s “bûche de Noël,” which they call a “souque” or a “chouquet,” meaning the “souche” (“root”) or the “coque” (“shell”) of Noël. Solemnly, they carry forth the charred remains, which yesteryear threw forth lovely flames, brightening the joyful faces of the household.
 
“The elder places the cinders in the fireplace, whilst all kneel to recite the Pater, the Lord’s Prayer. Two hefty “valets de ferme” slowly carry in the new “bûche.” They speak of a man’s first, second, third…or 30th “bûche de Noël.” It's as if it were a dynastic reckoning system!
 
“The new log is as big as they can find in the forest, the thickest part of the trunk, or more often, it’s the stump with enormous roots. The very moment they light it on fire, the little children are taken to pray in a corner of the room, so that the “souche” can make them presents. And while the little ones pray, the parents put at each end of the log packets of spices, candied almonds, and candied fruits.”

Tales are told around the burning log, which is jabbed with a poker from time to time, sending sparks up the chimney to the starry heavens. The flight of the sparks predicts the coming harvests, and as they explode, une bien vieille grand-mère invokes divine bounty for the coming year: 

“Bonne année, bonnes récoltes, autant de gerbes et de gerbillons.”
 
“A good year, good harvests, many sheaves of wheat.” Sometimes, the log will be sprinkled with oil and salt.

Finally, the company leaves the warmth of the hearth for midnight mass in their local church. But they know that the immense “souche” will still be throwing off its light and heat on their return.

But times change. Sometime during the 1890s, a pâtissier in Paris came up with an urban variation of this theme -- the now ever-present and delectable cake called the “bûche de Noël.” This is a sponge cake spread with a buttery, creamy filling, rolled up into a “log,” covered with chocolate or another frosting, and decorated with marzipan mushrooms and deer, little woodcutters and their saws, fir trees and holly leaves.

The 1890s was France’s “Belle Epoque,” a great wave of self-conscious modernity and modernization, of electric light and paved roads, of new ideas and a new enthusiasm for innovation. Fireplaces had become smaller and more efficient. The great technical innovation of the woodstove, which permits “l’enfermement du feu” -- the capture of the heat of combustion within the safety of iron walls -- had finally become widespread. Comfort and convenience were all the rage. The rugged “bûche,” its superstitions and its ceremonies steeped in religion, fell into disuse.

These days, the edible bûche is also undergoing a transformation. Les pâtissiers chics strive to create even more elaborate and surprising confections. Mango cream! Le tour Eiffel! Les vegétaliens (vegan) demand recipes without butter or cream, les gluten-free without wheat flour. It’s not always easy to find the simple dessert our family has come to love.

But I was heartened by a recent conversation with our own Béatrice on the other side of the Atlantic. As you know, Béatrice manages reservations for the Chateau’s guests and is based in Baltimore. Although they have lived outside l’héxagone for many years, she and her husband have raised their children in the French language and on French customs. As she wrote to me:

“My family always made a “bûche de Noël." It was one of my favorite traditions about Christmas…after the presents! When I was little, I would help my mother make the sponge cake and the traditional “crème au beurre.”

"Best of all was decorating the bûche. We delicately spread the crème on top of the cake, making lines with a fork to imitate bark. My mother kept a special box labeled “décoration bûche” in her pantry. It was stocked with little deer, saws, holly leaves, mushroom-shaped macarons...We were so excited to open this box year after year! Before serving the bûche, we would sometimes dust on powdered sugar for snow.

"My mother insisted on having her coffee-flavored bûche…which was not our favorite as children. So, it was decided that two bûches were necessary: one coffee for the parents and one chocolate for les p’tits!

"My aunts, excellent bakers, would also make a bûche that they would bring to the “réveillon de famille” on Christmas Eve. What joy to try the different bûches displayed on the table. All different and all delicious!

"Even after moving to the U.S., I make the bûche with my children. As Christmas approaches, it is always the same debate, what kind of bûche will we make this year? Are we going to choose the traditional “crème au beurre” or are we going to be more adventurous? But “crème au beurre” is usually the winner. Traditions are hard to break, even when you don't live in Normandy!

"Last year, it was hazelnut “crème au beurre” inside and chocolate outside. But this year, with my mother in mind, I wanted a coffee-flavored bûche…which I knew would not please my children. So, c’est décidé, we will bake two bûches this year!"

For Béatrice’s recipe and method, please click this link: Béatrice and Mira make Bûche de Noël 2020.

May your Yuletide be merry and bright,
with a bûche to brighten the night!