More About Ch'tis

I learnt of some weird Ch'ti (people of the North) customs this morning. At breakfast, coffee is drunk in veritable soup bowls! They dunk their toast and jam into the coffee before they eat it, but a couple of particular ch'ti customs involve the following: Sugar comes in cubes here, and they dunk a cube into the coffee and then suck the coffee out before they eat the sugar cube! ( It's sometimes given to babies to soothe them - can you believe it?)  They often have a wheel of camembert on the table too and cut a piece off it, wrap it in bread and then dunk that in the coffee and eat it!  Bread and butter plates are not used and the bread is put straight on the table and buttered etc there.

Cheese wrapped in bread then dunked in the soup bowl of coffee!

 

The sugar cubes waiting to be dunked, sucked and eaten!

 

Early this evening Therese came round to tell me what they had planned for me at the weekend. While she was talking, Danielle told me to prepare for another Ch'ti custom. She got out a small bottle set in a wooden frame, that could tip, so that the contents of the bottle could be poured. She gave me a tiny little glass - smaller than a shot glass - and tipped the alcohol into it. She told me it was un canard, which translates as a duck but it's obviously one of those querks of language that we have also, where the word has nothing whatever to do with the actual meaning!  I then had to dunk a cube of sugar into it, suck the alcohol out of it then eat it! I inwardly shuddered at the thought of eating straight sugar but had to try it!
I coughed immediately after the first suck as it is so strong! No wonder you only get a wee glass for it!

The alcohol is called L'Eau de Vie ( Water of Life!). It's a wonder anyone around here has teeth left in their head with all the sugar they eat! Danielle eats natural yogurt but then absolutely piles sugar into the pottle and mixes it all up.
Therese told me I am being taken away for the weekend to the Ardennes. This is a neighbouring region north of here along the Belgium border. It is quite a bit colder so I am to be prepared.
The Ardennes is not well populated and is a region of dense forest, rolling hills and ridges formed within the Ardenne mountain range.
Apparently this forest was selected as a primary  route for the mechanised forces of Nazi Germany in 1939 -1940 to invade France. The forest's great size concealed the amoured divisions and they managed to slip numerous divisions through the Maginot Line and surprisedly attack France. I am sure I will have the odd history lesson over the weekend but we pass through some villages and the markets will be open so I'm looking forward to that.

I took some school mags from TIS to school today to an older class. They hope to produce a small one in English for the school. They were so impressed with the creativity of our class pages and wanted to know websites to help them do it!

 

After school I wandered into the Bavay town centre to see the archeological site and visit the Museum just off the town square. I was amazed to discover that the stone walls etc that are all fenced off are the remains of a Roman Forum that dates from the second century! Bavay was an important town when France and most of Europe was part of the Roman Empire.

 

 



Many artefacts have been discovered and are on display e.g. large urns, statues and moldings from ceilings, and even parts of tiled flooring with intricate designs made with 3cm tiles! The colour is still very evident which is amazing when you consider how many hundreds of years old it all is.
Tomorrow I am in the Primary section of the school so that should be fun with more to see, learn and compare!