We’ve been in France again – such a chore with all that
beautiful Breton countryside, good cheap wine and tasty galettes – and it seems
to be working; Sidney, who has been happily announcing every apple that’s
fallen into the garden over the last few weeks, proudly lifted one he’d found
the other morning and declared pomme,
like a good petit bonhomme.
It’s incredibly easy to underestimate children, particularly
around the 18-month mark, when they take giant leaps in their understanding.
The first time we realised Sidney understood commands he was, in fact,
responding to French. Où sont tes chaussons, Sidney? Where
are your slippers? He disappeared into the kitchen and duly returned, arms
outstretched, slippers in hand.
It must be pretty confusing for a little person, eager to
understand the words swimming around him and communicate his own in return.
After all, we are asking him to understand not only ‘cockerel’ and
‘cock-a-doodle-doo’, but also le coq
and cocorico. That’s twice as many
words and sounds to take in and I’ve noticed that while in the spring he would
say ‘dog’, and was trying to say ‘aeroplane’, as soon as we took him to France
and switched to le chien and l’avion, he stopped giving them names
completely.
It felt like a step backwards – though that is far too
strong; he can take as long as he needs to start communicating in either
language as far as we’re concerned – but, in the long run, he is so lucky to
have these languages filtering into his brain at such a young age. I just hope
he continues with both. I know a lot of children reject the second language as
they get older and simply refuse to speak it.
Since Sidney was born, his dad has spoken to him almost
exclusively in French while I, with my poor French skills, have spoken to him
almost entirely in English. Seb did a lot of research before Sidney was born to
find out how best to raise him with dual languages and there is a huge amount
of information online, but it tends to boil down to either of two methods: one
person–one language, i.e. I speak English, Seb speaks French; or we both speak
French exclusively at home. Option B wasn’t really feasible for us and I was
concerned that my family would feel alienated if we brought Sidney up speaking
a different language. I hope my French skills will improve as Sidney gets older
(all those French board books must be sinking in, right?) because friends of
ours have admitted that their children’s desire to actually speak French
improved dramatically once their English mother started speaking French at
home. I guess we’ll see how it goes.
We are lucky in that several of Seb’s friends have young
children around the same age, with whom Sidney will be spending his holidays
and getting up to mischief throughout his childhood. Hopefully these
friendships will inspire him to keep communicating in French. Meanwhile, I’ll
just have to try to keep up!
So, galettes. Take a trip to Brittany and you’ll struggle to
escape them. The Breton galette is a savoury version of a crêpe.
It uses buckwheat flour and is usually stuffed with ham, cheese, eggs,
mushrooms or, in this region, Andouille, a strong-flavoured French delicacy
that you either love or hate: I’m with the latter.
Galettes are brilliant because children love them as much as
adults do. The buckwheat gives them a satisfying nuttiness and the pancake
crisps up at the edges while staying soft towards the centre where it takes on
the flavours and juices of the stuffing ingredients.
Buckwheat is also a healthy alternative to wheat (it’s
actually the seed of a plant related to rhubarb, rather than a grass); it’s
packed with protein, gluten-free and has all sorts of other good things in it
(trust
Oprah). If you’ve ever had soba noodles or salmon blinis, you’ve
had buckwheat, but you can also make porridge with it, gnocchi; you can even
sprout the seeds and eat them raw.
One particular speciality of the region is a sweet scallop
galette with creamed leeks and lettuce. I had one in the pretty medieval river
port town of Saint-Goustan and the sweetness of the scallops and creaminess of
the leeks against the savoury, crisp galette definitely did it for me. It made
a refreshing change from the standard cheese-ham-egg combo.
I decided to experiment with the sweet/creamy/savoury thing when
I got home. We’ve been making apple compote to use up some of the apples from
the garden. It’s so simple to make: just peel, core and chop your apples,
sprinkle with a little sugar (not too much) and heat in a pan until the apples
are soft and the sugar is incorporated. It’s delicious with yoghurt for a
refreshing dessert.
Here’s my recipe for Galette a la Brixton. I used the
standard ratio for pancakes as a guide: 2-parts flour; 2-parts liquid; 1-part
egg; ½-part
butter, and just substituted buckwheat flour for plain. A top tip from my
culinarily gifted French friend – beat the batter for a good 5 minutes before
you rest it for at least 1 hour; it brings air into the slightly heavier
buckwheat batter and letting it settle will give you a softer galette.
Brixton Galettes with
Scallops, Bacon and Apple Compote
Makes 5 or 6
For the pancake
225g buckwheat flour
300ml milk
2 eggs
½ tsp salt
butter, for frying
For the filling – choose
your own quantities
bacon rashers
scallops
apple compote
lettuce leaves
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
lemon juice
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Sift the flour and salt into a bowl and add the eggs and
milk. Beat with a whisk for a good 5 minutes and then cover and leave to rest
in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
Warm some plates in the oven before you start cooking – some
for the grown-ups and 2 to keep your ingredients warm while you’re cooking.
Melt a knob of butter in a large, heavy frying pan over a
medium-high heat. Pour a ladleful of batter into the pan and swirl it around a
bit to spread out the batter. Cook for a couple of minutes, until the bottom of
the galette has a nice brown tinge to it. Flip it over and cook the other side.
Transfer to one of your plates and keep warm in the oven. Add another knob of
butter to the pan and cook the next galette, and so on.
Grill or fry your bacon until crisp at the edges, then
transfer to one of your warmed plates. Tip the scallops into the pan to cook in
the fat from the bacon. They’ll only need a couple of minutes each side, so
keep an eye on them or they’ll quickly overcook. No one likes a rubbery
scallop.
Take your galettes from the oven and slide them onto the
warmed plates. Quickly spread with apple compote, lay the warm bacon over the
top and then top with the cooked scallops.
Scatter lettuce leaves around the edges and drizzle with
extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Squeeze some lemon juice over the
top and season with salt and pepper.
(For Sidney’s galette I used some leftover
vegetables and cooked them with an egg, to make it easier for him to eat and to
avoid too much salt.)
Voilà.
Useful info on strategies for raising bilingual children can
be found here:
