Madame Dufour

Journal # 17
Madame Dufour

In the summer of 1983, at the age of sixteen, I spent a month in Rouen, France as part of an exchange that was worked out between my parents, and a French lady that they had met while we were living in England. I was not thrilled about this trip because, at that time, my universe revolved around loud rock and roll bands, driving fast around the counties of the Piedmont Triad and trying to sneak into the Flamingo Drive-In. I was into Led Zeppelin, Rush and The Who, and I knew very little about France, and cared even less about it. My parents had a way of cajoling me into these things, and told me that I could visit my sister in England if I spent the month in France. I relented. I really had no choice.
I stayed with the Dufour family in a comfortable town house close to the city center. Rouen is the town where Joan of Arc was martyred, I believe, and the city center is dominated by a huge cathedral that was pock marked by shells during WWII. There is also a modern church dedicated to Joan of Arc. Needless to say, all of this was utterly boring to a sixteen year old, and I spent a good part of the trip pining away for the Fast Fare and the midnight movies at the Reynolda Cinema. I was spoiled.
The Dufour family tried their best to entertain this sulky, moping American teenager, but I would spend a good part of the day listening to Super Tramp and Simon and Garfunkle and doodling in a journal. I actually made a calendar that counted down the hours, not the days, until I returned to the States. It didn’t dawn on me that I could have used this time to learn French.
Madame Dufour was the matron of this family. She was a small, energetic woman with jet black hair and a way of ordering her family around that would have made Napoleon envious. Her main attribute? She could cook. I may have been home sick, but I was sixteen years old, and could eat twice my weight in one sitting. The fact that Madame Dufour could cook so well led me to conclude that she was my favorite of the Dufour clan.
Being a teenager, I usually slept late, but when I awoke, Madame Dufour would greet me with a bowl of hot, sweet coffee. This is where I acquired a taste for coffee and a great deal of other things I might add. With this cereal sized bowl of coffee, was a large flakey croissant with plenty of fresh French butter and preserves. This breakfast actually motivated me to get up earlier.
Lunch was the main meal of the day, and Mr. Dufour would return from work (I never understood what he did) at around eleven thirty. Even during the week, lunch could last over two hours, and Madame Dufour would serve course after course of salad, soup, chilled meats, breads, sweets, and cheese. She taught me how good a plain radish was with a little fresh butter smeared on it. She showed me how to make simple vinaigrette with olive oil, vinegar, garlic, salt and cracked black pepper. She didn’t speak a word of English, but she seemed to take a special interest in feeding her spoiled American guest.
The Dufours had a little country cottage in the orchard country of Normandy. They took me there on the weekends, and the living was primitive to say the least. They were in the process of fixing it up, and the cottage was without running water or electricity. The only way to cook was on a camp stove, and an ancient wood stove. Madame Dufour worked these with ease. She would spend all day at it, waking up with the dawn to get things going.
Sunday was the main event. She, her sons and I took their little car to a local farm early one morning to look over a gaggle of geese. After a long discussion in French with the farmer she pointed at one and said “Oui, C’est bon.”(pardon my bad French, it’s been a while). We left.
Soon after, the farmer pulled up with the dead, plucked goose. It was time for Madame Dufour to get to work.
The boys laid a large flat board on some sawhorses out in the yard. This was to be our table. The courses just seemed to keep coming that day, and I suppose it was about the fourth or fifth that we got to sample what had been running around in a barnyard earlier that day. I must confess, I don’t remember what it tasted like, but I don’t remember anything Madame Dufour cooking being less than delicious.
All of this was accompanied by wine and liquors, so by the end of the meal everyone was quite friendly, despite the language barrier. At one point they brought me a fat sausage and I ate it with slobbery gusto. The oldest son, Nicholas, asked me if I knew what it was. I said no. In broken English he explained that it was blood sausage, made from pigs intestines, bread and pork blood. The look on my face must have been telling because Madam Dufour laughed very hard.