We've had lentils for lunch twice this week. Do you like them? I don't think Americans eat lentils as much as French people do. I read somewhere that the country that consumes the most lentils is India, and that the country that grows the most lentils is Canada. France grows a lot of lentils (called lentilles) too. We enjoyed them one day with Toulouse sausages (pork) and another day with Merguez sausages (beef and lamb).
As our second course one day, we had a very French salad. It's red beets (betteraves) with Belgian endives and a vinaigrette dressing. I know a lot of Americans who won't eat beets, but the French seem to love them. They are often sold cooked and less often raw. On another day, we ate radishes with salt, butter, and bread as our first course and lentils as our second course. Again, very French.
I took my adult niece to my favorite restaurant for lunch. We ordered their specialty, golden lentil soup and some type of sliced beef with lettuce, tomato, with some type of delicious sauce on a lavish bread that is cut into slices like a jellyroll. She made faces like a child all through the meal. I just wanted to reach over and pinch her since the waitresses look out to make sure everything is going well, and like I said it is my favorite restaurant. When she got home she said that was weird. So imagine my surprise about six weeks later she asked could we go again to have that delicious lentil soup. Like I said I just wanted to pinch her. lol Oh, and since then we have the recipe and make it quiet often. So yes on the lentils.
ReplyDeleteMadonna
Funny, mystifying story, Madonna. Thanks. I'm glad she liked the lentils. Those and the rest of the meal sound good to me. Can you share the recipe for that golden lentil soup? Or an approximation?
DeleteJerry cooked lentils the other day, too. The bowl looked very much like yours. Delicious.
ReplyDeleteAlways up for a golden lentil soup recipe!
ReplyDeleteWe like them, but seldom cook them.
ReplyDeleteI have always liked beets a lot. My dad grew them in the garden and they are delicious cooked very fresh with butter. I've nevereaten one raw though.
ReplyDeleteI think you can grate a raw beet the way you grate carrots to make carottes râpées en salade with vinaigrette. I think I remember making that a few times in California. Around Saint-Aignan, I don't often see raw beets for sale on markets or in supermarkets.
DeleteI just posted a comment with a link to a recipe for raw grated beet salad, down below.
DeleteI almost had lentil bean soup yesterday, but we ended up at a different restaurant :) I was looking forward to it.
ReplyDeleteDoug (whom you met) taught me how to make a delicious lentil soup -- they treated me to it upon my arrival at their house in Vermont last time I was there. I have since made it here, and I love it. My husband, sadly, didn't love it. And, the beets and endive salad was one of my favorite dishes that I learned about from my au pair family in Paris... theirs also had an apple cut up; a mild firm white cheese of some kind, cubed; for greens, they used watercress, I believe. Then a classic mustard vinaigrette. YUMM.
My guess is that most Americans have only been introduced to cooked pickled beets (on salad bars) and don't really even know what yummy cooked non-pickled beets are like.
Our friend Sue from California came to visit a few years ago. I had made a beet salad and apologized to her because I suddenly remembered that she'd said in the past that she didn't care for beets. She tasted the salad and said they were delicious. Different and so much better that beets you buy in a can. When we lived in California, Walt and I often bought raw beets and roasted them in the oven to make beet salads.
DeleteMy mother always made salads for us with beets growing up. So I like them, but not the canned type. Every time I hear the word lentils, I think of that line from a song in Funny Girl: When a girl's incidentals Are no bigger than two lentils. That said, I like them too.
ReplyDeleteOur whole family (young people too) loves both lentils and beets. -- Chrissoup
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to a recipe for a raw grated beet salad with balsamic vinegar:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/241407/raw-beet-salad/