English Enquête

Due to my recent travels to Brittany, France I decided to focus my cuisine enquête on Brittany food. I have identified the key factors that make food special in the region of Brittany and how these traditional dishes have been developed. My research has influenced my perspective of the Brittany culture. By using my own experiences I have expressed my beliefs and values about Brittany food. I was also interested in the new information I discovered from my research through primary and secondary sources. Brittany food is not widely known by other cultures, unlike Parisian food, I was delighted to share my investigation with others.

Traditional dishes are widely respected throughout Brittany and I found that from my own experiences people were eager to share their culture with tourists, like me. Whilst I made my way around Brittany, visiting historic sites I discovered that Brittany’s history had highly influenced their culture, customs and food today. Brittany has a long history with being inhabited since the Lower Paleolithic and over the ages developed it’s own sense of culture and traditional dishes. For example, crepes or galettes originated in Brittany due to Brittany being France’s main source of buckwheat, the main ingredient in galettes, around the 12^th century. Galettes are incredibly low in fat and sugar so they are also nutritional, making it a healthy option. This traditional dish continues to be iconic in the region of Brittany with a ‘creperie’ on every street. My personal first impression with Brittany food was that all the food was very fresh and it was very common to have meat with a side of vegetables for a main meal.

I decided to contrast my own experiences and preferences with information I found through my research. I was very fortunate to experience many traditions whilst on my cultural exchange in Brittany, especially around Christmas. Due to Christmas being in the heart of winter many dishes were contrastingly different than those in Australia. My French family and I ate our main Christmas meal on Christmas Eve, abundant with seafood followed by a ‘bûche de noel’ (Christmas log cake) and shared our presents on Christmas morning. Christmas in France can be celebrated two other ways, in Eastern and Northern France Christmas season begins on the 6^th of December with la fête de Saint Nicholas and in Lyon la fête de lumières is celebrates on the 8^th of December. Candles are placed in windows to light up the city to express gratitude towards Mary, mother of Jesus. Like most of Europe, France traditionally has their main Christmas meal on Christmas Eve, although the dishes vary from region and dinner is commonly followed by a Christmas ‘bûche’. A traditional Christmas dish in Southern France consists of Marsilles bouillabaisse, savory soup, whilst in Northern France fish dishes, such as Lotte a L’imperatrice, are widely popular.

The most effective way to share my experience and investigation with others was to perform an oral around the sub-headings of festival food, traditional dishes and Christmas food. I believe that I have thoroughly covered the key factors of Brittany food that shape the country’s culture and customs, these factors are the local people, history and resources from the land, such as local seafood and vegetables.

 

From undertaking this study, I now have a developed understanding of traditional Brittany food and culture. Although I had my personal experiences to reflect on I discovered new interesting information through my research that has also helped me develop my perspective of Brittany. Such as, different ways Christmas is celebrated, how traditional dishes vary from region and how history has influenced these dishes.