flipPotatoes with Bacon and Cider
Potatoes with Bacon and Cider
Why this dish? Above the café-grocery in Yvetot, they ate simply and quickly. Potatoes, bacon, and a splash of cider: this is the ordinary meal of the working-class milieu that Ernaux describes with such lucidity in *La Place*.
A one-pot dish of melting potatoes, pan-fried with bacon and onions, deglazed with dry cider. Rustic, hearty, unpretentious.
In our house, above the grocery, we didn't stand on ceremony. Potatoes, bacon, a splash of cider from the barrel — that was the evening meal, the one you wolfed down before reopening the shop. My mother cut the bacon thick, never weighing it. I can still see the black pan and the greasy smell rising in the kitchen. We said it was nourishing, and nourishing meant you weren't ashamed to be hungry.
- •Potatoes from the garden — a good salad bowl (base)
- •Salt-cured pork belly — a piece (fat and salt)
- •Onions — two or three (aromatic base)
- •Farmhouse dry cider — a large glass (degreasing)
- •Butter — a knob (cooking)
Potatoes with Bacon and Cider
A one-pot dish of melting potatoes, pan-fried with bacon and onions, deglazed with dry cider. Rustic, hearty, unpretentious.
Why this dish? Above the café-grocery in Yvetot, they ate simply and quickly. Potatoes, bacon, and a splash of cider: this is the ordinary meal of the working-class milieu that Ernaux describes with such lucidity in *La Place*.
In our house, above the grocery, we didn't stand on ceremony. Potatoes, bacon, a splash of cider from the barrel — that was the evening meal, the one you wolfed down before reopening the shop. My mother cut the bacon thick, never weighing it. I can still see the black pan and the greasy smell rising in the kitchen. We said it was nourishing, and nourishing meant you weren't ashamed to be hungry.
Ingredients (period version)
- Potatoes from the garden — a good salad bowl (base)
- Salt-cured pork belly — a piece (fat and salt)
- Onions — two or three (aromatic base)
- Farmhouse dry cider — a large glass (degreasing)
- Butter — a knob (cooking)
Ingredients
- Firm-fleshed potatoes — 800 g (base)
- Smoked lardons (or diced belly) — 200 g (fat and salt)
- Onions — 2 medium (aromatic base)
- Dry cider — 20 cl (degreasing)
- Butter — 30 g (cooking)
- Pepper, parsley — to taste (seasoning)
Method
- Peel the potatoes and cut them into large cubes. Slice the onions.
- Fry the lardons in the butter until they color, then add the onions.
- Add the potatoes, brown them for a few minutes while stirring.
- Pour in the cider, cover, and cook over low heat for 25 to 30 minutes, until the potatoes are melting and the juice is almost absorbed.
- Pepper (the bacon is already salty), sprinkle with parsley, and serve piping hot.
How it was made : In modest Norman households, the one-pot dish made the evening meal: a garden vegetable, a bit of salted pork for flavor, and homemade cider replacing the wine absent from the region. Nothing was weighed; they cooked by eye and according to what was left.
The contemporary twist : A spoonful of Isigny crème fraîche at the last moment and a few sprigs of chervil transform this poor man's dish into a bistro plate.
Sources : Annie Ernaux, La Place, Gallimard, 1983
Annie Ernaux · Charactorium
