Charcutiers

Yesterday was the 203rd annual "Messe du Souvenir des Charcutiers-Traiteurs et Traiteurs".  I'm still not exactly sure what was happening.  It was a special night-time Mass (which meant that I spent 3 hours at Mass yesterday) and it was for the Charcutiers. I think the guild or union put it on. There were many Charcutiers there, some with all white suits, covered by capes - yes, capes - of royal blue velvet (Incidentally, the French call it "French Blue").  There were at least thirty other Charcutiers wearing all white clothes, white aprons and tall white chef hats.  To my own bemusement, as soon as I saw them, the song "Les Poissons" from "The Little Mermaid" immediately popped into my head and refused to leave.  There were other Charcutiers on the side of the Choir loft setting up a buffet for after the Mass.  As I tried to inconspicuously see what they were serving, I realized I didn't really know what kind of food a Charcutier prepares.  I wasn't quite clear on the difference between a Charcutier and a Butcher.  Resolutely, I planned out my question in French before asking - "Est-ce qu'un Charcutier c'est pareil comme un Boucher?" - and turned to my neighbors in the Choir stall.

A Charcutier is someone who works with sausages and prepared meats, in a Charcuterie (the sausage store).  

"So, it's like a butcher?" I asked Nicole, the very nice older woman who I sit next to in choir.  
"Ah, non," she replied, "a butcher is for meat."  Here I must have looked confused, because she continued, "Charcutiers don't work with viande... how do you say viande in English?"  
"Beef," I replied. 
"Right," she continued, "They don't work with beef.  Or any cuts of meat really."  
Let me just say, as an American, I was confused.
"So, they work with sausages?" I asked.
"Oui, oui," Nicole and my other neighbor excalimed, looking relieved that they had gotten through to me.
"And chickens too?" I asked.  I was fairly sure that Charcutiers did not work with poultery and that there was some other person who did that, but I just wanted to check.
"Non, non," they told me as their faces fell at my misunderstanding, "Poultry is for the Volailler."
"Ah, ok." I said.  Of course, the Volailler!  I could see that they seemed a little sad that they couldn't make me understand, so I said, "So a Charcuterie sells sausages and it's where the Charcutier works."
"Oui, oui," They smiled at me.  I wasn't completely lost, after all!

After the service, I finally got to see what there was in the buffet, and what it is exactly that Charcutiers do. Waiting in line, I envisioned plates full of pepperoni and salami.  Apparently, in France they have a lot of "sausages" that aren't what I would particularly have thought of as sausage.  On the tables, there were beautiful platters of what seemed to be giant meat casseroles cut up into squares and served with toothpicks.  Some of the squares had a garnish, others seemed to glow with a layer of gelatin on the top.  I took one meat square and ate it, deciding it was a lump of ham.  Not too bad, I thought.  I wanted to get more but the crowd was enormous and I couldn't take it, so I retreated into the choir loft to find my coat.  When I entered, I saw that the entire choir was there, and there were meat trays there just for us.  Great! I thought.  I found a piece of marbled meat that looked interesting, so I picked it up and had it halfway to my mouth when I heard someone exclaim, "Ah fromage de tête!" and grab a piece of what I had.  Hmmm, fromage de tête ...head cheese, I thought, suspending my piece's movement toward my mouth.  I couldn't remember what head cheese was, but I remembered learning about it before and that I didn't think I would like it.  Upon further inspection of my hunk of meat, I noticed it was a bunch of tiny other pieces of meat stuck together with jelly.  I decided to forgo this, and found a trash can (when no one was looking of course).  As it turns out, I was glad I didn't eat it.


When I got home, I thought that maybe there are Charcutiers in the USA, and I just have never heard of them, so I looked up some words in Google translate.  In English, Charcutier translates to Butcher, as does Boucher.  I was not crazy, we really don't have them.  Charcuterie, however, translated to Delicatessen.  This may be the case in some old delis where I believe you can purchase loafs of spiced meat and sausage.  It is not, however, like most delis where you buy a sandwich with a pickle and potato chips.  As for Volailler, that translated to Poulterer.  Again, this is something we have (I think) in the USA, however, not something that anyone I know has ever talked about.  


In other news: We're singing excerpts for Handel's Messiah in choir at church, and more and more, I like it.  I've sung Messiah millions of times before, and I never enjoyed it, but here I am finally enjoying Baroque music.  I can't even quite remember why I didn't like it before.  Perhaps I wanted more emotional singing and less technically demanding passages.  I honestly have no idea.  But, I really enjoy the melismas and the intertwining of the voice parts.  I certainly never thought that in France I would discover an interest in English Baroque music.  But, as the French seem to say every day, "On ne sait jamais" - the equivalent of, "you never know".