AUVERGNE, FR.—

I am not from a Jell-O family.

We just didn’t develop the custom.

Never once have I uttered any of the following phrases, “I would have made Jell-O, but I didn’t have any mini-marshmallows,” “Can you please pass me the turkey- shaped Jell-O” or “It’s not a party without Jell-O.”

And so, when I found a beige congealed substance glistening between my fois gras and tiny salad, I was surprised. First by its very presence and then by the fact that it tasted like meat.

Upon further investigation, I discovered that it was aspic, a traditional recipe from the 1300s. Apparently, it is made by boiling bones in water. Yumm.

Did Medieval frat boys do grog shots in the middle ages?

The idea of turning it electric green, shaping it into a castle and suspending different things in its lime-flavored gooeyness must have been invented by Bill Cosby a bit later.

Anyway.

You may not know this about me, but I like to cook.

And despite the fact that I live in France and attend giant family meals featuring every kind of traditional French fare you could imagine, I, personally, don’t cook very many French recipes aside from the Savoyard trifecta (Raclette, Tartiflette and Fondue) I complete each winter.

But the book “Julie & Julia” seems to be changing my mind … or maybe it’s just opening it a little bit.

Sure, “Julie & Julia” may not be capital L literature (drinking my tea with a fully flexed pinky finger), but I can’t wait to see what she’ll whip up next.

It goes like this, a woman blogs away her boredom with the details of her culinary misadventures while cooking her way through the 1961 Julia Child Anthology “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” preparing all 524 recipes including hoof-flavored Jell-O, bless her soul.

I see some of myself in the character because like Julia, I cook when I am bored and sometimes I get a little carried away with projects, but that’s where the similarities end.

While I am not nearly as picky as I was before, I don’t have Julie’s I’ll-eat-anything-once attitude.

I wish I did, but 75% of the recipes kidneys, livers, brains, mayonnaise and other assorted treats regularly whipped up in her tiny apartment would never have found their way anywhere near my stomach.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t identify with it.

In the book, after a few fruitless trips to the ethnic grocery stores, Julie enlists her entire family to search Manhattan for a marrow bone in order to make a sauce so that she can cross it off her list.

The search takes the better part of a week.

I can relate because I have gone on similar quests here.

She and I should trade corner stores because while I am almost certain that I could find a marrow bone in under fifteen minutes (including the three or four minutes it would take me to put on my shoes and find my keys), it has taken me nearly a month to find the Nutter Butter cookies that I have had an uncontrollable taste for.

Luckily my friend network busted into overdrive and two Costco-sized boxes of yummy peanut-shaped sandwich cookies arrived from the army base in Germany just the other day.

It’s strange because I almost never ate Nutter Butters at home, but I just cannot ditch this craving.

Note: if you find yourself living in France bring all of the peanut butter things you might NEED with you because the French look at peanut butter the way I look at kidneys: first with skepticism and then total disgust.

This past fall it was an unquenchable taste for root beer.

That one was easier, I happened to be in Paris and popped into the store Thanksgiving. I paid five times the price for the b-list soda, but it knocked that craving dead flat.

I wonder what will be next.

Julia’s recipe for pouched eggs in red wine didn’t float my boat and the description of cutting up a chicken sent my mind wandering back to Dan Aykroyd’s Julia Child on “Saturday Night Live” bleeding all over the place.

But why not? Why wouldn’t I whip up some of Julia’s dishes?

It is time to expand my French cooking horizons and tackle some of things I see in the store and never buy.

The other day I found a package of salted, dried meat marked ‘1/2 Jesus’ and I walked right by it. Next time, I could buy it and see what that’s all about. Figure out if it’s traditionally eaten with a carrot salad, in an omelette or maybe it’s more of an aperitif meat.

We’ll have to see.

At the end of April is my two-year anniversary in France, maybe I’ll cook up something especially French to celebrate.

The lovely crepe cake with spinach and béchamel sauce detailed in the book sounds nice, fattening, but nice.

Yes, that’s a good place to start finding some new favorites.

How fun.

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This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 2:30 pm and is filed under Food & Wine, France, Humor, Literature, Pop Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.