Le réveillon de Noël

Over the years since I've moved to France, people on both sides of the pond often ask me food-related questions: what do the French eat for breakfast, what is the typical Thanksgiving meal, do you really get to take 2-hour lunches (no!)...and the question I get asked most this time of year, what do you eat at Christmas?

When we're stateside, we get together on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. My family does the big formal meal thing at Thanksgiving, so Christmas is lower-key. We do hors-d'oeuvres on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas Day, we have ham and potato salad and all the shrimp cocktail you can eat. We've celebrated this way for as long as I can remember, and I always look forward to spending this time of year with my family.

This year we spent Christmas in France, celebrating on Christmas Eve with "le réveillon de Noël", the traditional French Christmas Eve dinner, prepared by my mother-in-law (who, by the way, is a great cook). I'm happy to say that I had the presence of mind to take pictures of the meal so that I could share them with you. We normally start off with champagne and hors-d'oeuvres, toasting the events of the past year and those to come in the next.

We then move onto the first course, fois gras and salad. In December 2009, I was pregnant and couldn't eat fois gras, so I was very excited to be able to indulge this year (though not without a certain degree of guilt, and I'm not referring to fat content...).

The main course was capon with chestnuts and sauteed apples.

On the plate, accompanied by carrot puree and stuffing ("farce").

After the main course comes the cheese tray. I didn't take a picture, but I'm sure you can use your imagination. We had camembert, goat cheese, old Gouda, Saint Albray and a couple of others I'm forgetting.

For dessert we had a chestnut-flavored bûche de noël (yule log), accompanied by chestnut ice-cream and candied chestnuts. As you can see, chestnuts are quite popular at Christmastime in France.

Afterwards there's tea and coffee for anyone who is game. And presents, of course!