what I eat at my french family's house | french food diaries

Hi, I'm Elena, a psychology student from Germany, and today I'm taking you along to show you everything we cooked and ate at my grandparents' house in Burgundy, France, during the winter holidays. The region is known for its wine, mustard, and rich, buttery cuisine, which makes every meal feel extra special. I'm very excited to share with you all the cozy home-cooked meals and festive treats we enjoyed throughout the week. If you watched my last video when I was here, you probably know that we eat a lot of baguette and cheese in this household, so this time I chose not to show it as much, but just so you know, you can imagine there's at least one piece of baguette with every meal, even if I don't mention or show it. It was already late when I arrived, so we sat down to have dinner. The meal started with some small cheese cubes, and I went for a tomato juice as an appetizer, followed by pumpkin soup with some crème fraîche. The warm soup just felt like such a comfort meal after my long travel day. Alongside that, we ate half a pâté en croûte each, which is a traditional French cold pâté in a pastry crust. This one was made with poultry. To end the meal, I went with some ice cream for dessert. My first day here started with two pieces of baguette with some tea, while my grandma was already baking an apple cake. We also began preparing lunch, which was gnocchi with a blue cheese sauce and some fresh spinach. Now, I know this is more like an Italian dish, but we replaced the gorgonzola from the original recipe with some French blue cheese, so the sauce was made of about one third blue cheese and two thirds crème fraîche. When I filmed my last what I eat in a week in France video, I didn't show much of the cooking process, so this time I wanted to change that and show more of how the meals were actually prepared. So the cooked gnocchi, the spinach, and the sauce were assembled, and my grandma put some gruyère on top before it all went into the oven for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, we sat down for lunch and had leftovers of rabbit roulades with some honey glazed carrots my grandma had made the day before, which were super tender and went very well together. Then came the baked gnocchi, of which we didn't eat too much because it was already our second course, and the apple cake was waiting for us for dessert afterwards. In the afternoon, we went out into the city to buy a couple of things. First off, just like last time, we went to a store that sells pre-cooked escargots and everything you might need to prepare them, and then we went back to a patisserie where we bought some macarons. To end our little outing, we stopped at an old cafe and ordered some hot spiced apple juice to warm up a little. For dinner, we mainly had leftovers, starting with yesterday's pumpkin soup, followed by the rest of the pâté en croûte, and a portion of the baked gnocchi as the main course. Then came my personal highlight of the evening, the macarons we had bought earlier. I had chosen banana and lime mint flavored ones, which were both just so flavorful and well-rounded. I already said this in my last video, but these macarons alone are reason enough for me to come back here. Oh, and I also had a clementine to kind of balance out the pastries. On Christmas Eve, my grandma and I went to the market to get some fresh fruit and vegetables, and to pick up a few orders for the next couple of days. Since we hadn't eaten breakfast yet, we decided to stop for some hot chocolate and shared a croissant and the lightest waffle I have ever tasted. I'm truly not kidding when I say that pastries in France are the best. After that, we went to a patisserie to pick up some mini bûches for dessert, which are basically festive french log cakes that are served cold. For lunch, we made some chicory in a lemon sauce. As you can see, my grandparents cook with a lot of butter instead of, for example, olive oil, which I'm more used to at home, but I have to say that everything tastes so good with that buttery flavor. My grandma made sure to turn the vegetables frequently in the pan so they wouldn't burn or become too bitter. Alongside that, we slowly fried some french white sausages called boudin blanc. They are soft and fine textured with a mild and savory flavor. My family wouldn't be my family if we hadn't had some cheese and baguette after the main course. Just like in my last video, I unfortunately don't remember the cheeses, but I know that two of those were goat cheese and the other were made from cow's milk. For dessert, I had another macaron, which I think was grapefruit flavored. Because I was working on my last video, I later went to a cafe, ordered a pumpkin spice latte with coconut milk, which was a little too sweet and heavy for my taste, and started sketching. When I came home, my grandma was already preparing dinner for the special evening, where we had planned to eat scallops. As an appetizer, there were small cheese cubes and gougeres, which you might remember if you watched my last video. They are basically small savory french cheese puffs made from choux pastry and baked with cheese. After a few salad leaves with vinaigrette, my grandma started preparing the scallops. They have to be eaten fairly quickly, because their texture doesn't hold up well if they sit too long. This might actually be one of my all-time favorite foods, because the texture is truly unmatched when cooked right. In this case, they were cooked for about three and a half minutes on each side, and after turning them, we added some white wine and creme fraiche. At the same time, we prepared some leeks in the same way, with butter, white wine, and creme fraiche. After the scallops were done cooking, they were immediately plated. They had a very tender, almost buttery texture, with a mild flavor that paired really well with the rich sauce. We were already pretty full, but when it comes to dessert, there's always a little space left, so we ate the mini bûche we had bought earlier. I chose one with a fruity berry cream inside, but there are countless variations of this traditional dessert. It was light and sweet, with a creamy vanilla note underneath. I slept in the next morning, and when I finally woke up, I saw my first snow of the winter, which made me so happy. Since we eat lunch quite early, usually between 12 30 and 1 pm, I just snacked on a banana and had some tea, while lunch preparations were already in full swing. We had picked up a stuffed poultry roast from the butcher the day before, so that went into the pan, while my grandma showed me how she ties her own fresh bouquet of herbs. Once the meat was browned on all sides, she took it out and sautéed the onions in the fat that was left in the pan, then removed them as well, so the dish wouldn't become too heavy. After adding everything back in, it was then deglazed with a little white wine and water, and left to simmer for a while. Shortly after, we cleaned the mushrooms and fried them in some butter, but they weren't the only vegetable served with the poultry, because we had also bought a romanesco cauliflower, which I think looks incredibly beautiful. After the same starters as yesterday, my grandma used her 50 year old electric knife to slice the meat, something I have never seen before, and then everything got beautifully plated, and I have to tell you that the white wine sauce went so incredibly well with the meat, it was juicy and tender, and the vegetables made it all come together. Overall, it was simple, but incredibly satisfying. To end the meal, I had a macaron, I think this one was passion fruit flavored, and a piece of apple cake. For dinner, my grandparents had prepared a vegetable soup containing carrots, leeks, and potatoes, and some smoked salmon with lemon juice. After some obligatory cheese, I ate a clementine, half of this little ice cream pod, and tried a candied chestnut for the first time, which is kind of a specialty around here. It tastes very sweet, but in a rich and intense way. I started the next day with my favorite way to drink tea, which is an earl grey with lemon and sugar, along with two slices of french bread, one topped with concoiture cheese, and the other one with some apple jam, as well as a small semolina pudding. For lunch, we had leftovers of our stuffed poultry roast, romanesco cauliflower, and some rice with grated cheese. For dessert, my grandma had a small apple tart, while my grandpa and I each had a Paris Brest, a classic french pastry made from choux pastry, filled with praline cream, which has a rather funny backstory in my opinion, because it was invented to draw attention to a bicycle race from Paris to Brest, and its round shape was meant to resemble a bicycle wheel. Since the sun was shining, and we wanted to enjoy the weather, my grandma and I went into the city for a stroll, and eventually sat down at yet another cafe to warm up a little. She ordered another hot spiced apple juice, and I chose a rose matcha latte with coconut milk. With that, my grandma introduced me to cannelle, small pastries with a kind of caramelized exterior, and a soft custardy center. You can trust me when I say they tasted insanely good. Dinner that day was pretty simple, we had some leftover vegetable soup, and a few eggs my grandma fried in some butter. To end the meal, we shared the juiciest, most flavorful, and probably expensive, pineapple I have ever eaten, served alongside some vanilla ice cream. And that was it for day 5. The next day was Saturday, which meant it was market day, where we mainly went to buy some seafood, fish for lunch, a couple of fresh oysters for dinner, and of course some baguettes. Right after that, we stopped for breakfast at the same place where we had eaten the waffle last time, and each had one for breakfast. The fish we bought was a scorpionfish filet, which I think is a funny name for a fish. I looked it up, and in German it's called Drachenkopffisch, which literally translates to dragon head fish. Nevermind that, my grandma decided to coat it in flour and fry it in butter and olive oil. She left it for about 6 minutes before turning it, so it developed a beautiful golden crust. We ate it with some lemon juice, and I was pleasantly surprised by how juicy and light the fish tasted despite being fried. For dessert, my grandpa had made his signature fruit salad. I learned from him that adding a little vanilla sugar makes a fruit salad about 10 times better, especially with the right fruit. For dinner, the oysters were washed, opened, and plated. I haven't eaten them in a very long time, mostly because they're not as common in Germany and are often considered a fancy treat. Here, they're much more affordable, we paid 8.50 per dozen at the market. We ate them with a charlotte vinaigrette, but it's important to discard the oyster's natural juice first before eating it. After about a dozen each, we moved on to dessert, which was the fruit salad with some vanilla ice cream. On Sundays, a lot of cafes are closed here, so I looked up the ones that were still open and found a cute little spot in the city center. It honestly felt like finding a hidden gem, because pastries are good in many cafes here, but the matcha? This one was made with oat milk, and it was hands down the best matcha I have ever had. I really don't have anything else to add to that. Remember how we bought some precooked escargots at the beginning of my stay? Well, this was the day we finally made them. Basically, you place one snail into each empty shell, which are bought separately, and fill them with herb butter. The oven was preheated to about 250 degrees celsius, and then turned down once the escargots went in, so the butter wouldn't burn. Before eating them, we had a simple salad with tomatoes, avocado, and chickpeas. Since I don't think many people know how escargots are actually eaten, I wanted to show that as well. You hold the shell with special tongs, pull the snail out with a small fork, dip it back into the melted butter if you want to get more flavor, and then, of course, dip some bread into the butter that's left on the plate. We finished things off with baked apples on toast my grandma had made. They were super soft, juicy, and had a pleasantly buttery flavor that just makes everything taste comforting. After lunch, we wanted to get out for a bit, so we drove to a small village to go for a walk. There was a family-run farm where we were offered some warm cassis, as well as pain d'épices, which is french gingerbread, served with different jams. Dinner this time consisted of some crepes with a mushroom bechamel filling, and a clementine on the side. I didn't film much on my last day here because my extended family came to visit, and I would have felt uncomfortable filming my food while they were there, but I did film the preparations for a family lunch. My grandma wanted to make beef wellington, so we chopped up some mushrooms while my grandpa prepared the vegetables to go with the dish, and the rest of the mushrooms were fried in some butter. The puff pastry was rolled out, which I always find so satisfying to watch, before the minced mushrooms were added along with the seared meat. I'm very sorry that I can't show you how it turned out in the end, but I was a bit too overwhelmed to film anything beyond that point. The next thing I filmed was a little outing to yesterday's cafe, where I treated myself to another heavenly matcha latte while reading for a bit, before heading back home for dinner. My last meal here consisted of quite a few leftovers, some vegetable soup, some cured duck breast, and a little bit of yesterday's salad. The main course was a typical french puff pastry with a mushroom filling. For my last dessert, we had a bûche glacée, an ice cream log cake made entirely of ice cream, with a dark chocolate layer on the outside, a creamy milk chocolate layer, and a cherry sorbet center. It was rich and chocolatey, but the cherry sorbet was definitely my favorite part.