The Aperitif Guy

This week, France celebrates its national feast. Bastille Day (usually known simply as le quatorze juillet in French) marks the storming of the hated prison in Paris, a key moment in the beginning of the Revolution. The events of 1789 did not remove the King - that would come later - and France would know more troubles yet, including new tyrants and further revolutions. However, the events of that 14th July capture the imagination and fire a people's love of their country like no other date in its history. France gets under your skin. The language has a musicality about it; it feels wonderful in the mouth. You can say things a variety of ways, but the elegantly-constructed sentence will always draw praise. Education is prized for its own sake, not just as a means to a job. Manners are greatly appreciated, and formality is valued. The pace of life is different, and that's as true in the big cities as it is in the rural areas. Friends call in on one another in the early evening,...

You’ll see from my bio in the corner that I claim to have learnt to eat in France. I lived there as a student in the late 1980s, away from home for the first time, away from my familiar culture and cuisine. Some things, like eating with a fork and bread (rather than a knife and fork) or following the main course with a salad, were noticeable immediately as different from home. My awareness of aperitif culture was more of a creeping realisation. I remember being surprised that so many customers in my local bar drank pastis in the evening, when they drank more familiar drinks earlier in the day or later at night. I just put it down to French strangeness at first. As I made friends, I was invited out to dinner more often, and it became evident that something very specific was going on. The pastis drinking was part of the preparation for dinner. I began to realise that the dining experience didn’t begin at the first course as at home, but with the introductory drink beforehand, u...

29 th September is the traditional feast of St Michael the Archangel – Michaelmas. Pious legend has it that when Satan was cast down from heaven by St Michael, he landed a bramble thicket. Each year on Michaelmas day, he pisses on all the brambles he can find, leaving their fruit shriveled, sour and unpalatable. (Nothing to do with reduced daylight hours, honest!) Wise foragers will have harvested plenty blackberries well before the end of September, of course. Some of them will get macerated in spirit - the berries, not the foragers! - then sweetened, bottled and put away for the rest of the year. For the less organised among us, the better liquor shops sell crème de mûres sauvages (wild blackberry liqueur). One of my favourites is made by the Cistercian monks who make Chartreuse liqueur, so it pleases me to remember the Michaelmas legend while I’m drinking it. Why am I telling you all this? Surely, liqueurs belong at the end of dinner, to help you relax and see your gues...