While preparations for end-of-year holiday meals are going well these days, one week before Christmas Eve in the United States, the tricolor culinary art is successful, as shown in this report nearly Detroit, Michigan, with two French women who maintain this know-how, well beyond our borders.
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Wedged between two anonymous storefronts along a parking lot, on the long road that goes from the center of Detroit to the chic neighborhoods of Bloomfield or Birmingham, it is here that Claude Bouly-Pellerin set up his restaurant called “The French Lady”. Inside, a counter, a few tables and posters on the walls reminiscent of France. The dishes also smell of the tricolor terroir.
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On the hit parade, quiche Lorraine, cassoulet and beef bourguignon are the best. “These are the three dishes that I am obliged to make, explains the Frenchwoman. I’ve given up counting the number of quiches we make per week, and we have to make bourguignon and cassoulet every week, even in summer. This summer, I had customers who were disappointed not to find cassoulet on the menu.”
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Born in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, Claude Bouly-Pellerin has always cooked. Vegetables, meats, cheeses or cold meats. She’s lucky, in Detroit, she can find almost all the products she needs to make her dishes.
“There’s just the cut of veal to make blanquette that I can’t find, she admits. Otherwise, I have French flour, so with much less gluten. And then I have a wonderful importer who imports slightly special products, real sausages, Toulouse sausages, andouillettes that I wouldn’t find here.
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At “The French Lady”, the clientele is mostly local, but some come from far away: Cincinnati for example, a four-hour drive or from Windsor, Ontario, on the other side of the border with Canada.
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Eastern Market, one of the oldest markets in North America
About thirty kilometers from Birmingham, right next to the center of Detroit, is the Eastern Market, one of the oldest markets in North America. And that’s where we find Marie Wallace. Arriving in Detroit almost 20 years ago, the Frenchwoman cooks and sells crepes, up to 350 every Saturday.
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If today his small business ‘The French Cow’ is a success, he initially had to teach Americans to appreciate buckwheat. “They said ‘why are your pancakes brown?’ remembers the Frenchwoman, because they were used to eating pancakes the way they are made here in the United States, with white flour. I had to educate them, I had to give them a taste for free. I have a lot of customers who didn’t dare try it at first and who now love it.”
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The particularity of this gigantic Detroit farmers’ market, where you can find the produce of all Michigan farms, is that it is open every Saturday, and welcomes hundreds of local farmers. “It’s 52 weeks a year, and that doesn’t happen in the United States, in California for example, where the weather is wonderful all year round. Here, it snows for six months, but we have the market all year long. ‘year.”
The Eastern Market also offers several course programs to teach Americans how to cook simple products at home rather than buying ready-made meals.
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Go further
“The French Lady”, Claude Bouly-Pellerin’s restaurant in Birmingham, a half-hour drive from Detroit, Michigan.
“The French Cow”, Marie Wallace’s crepe shop at the Eastern Market near Detroit, Michigan.
“The Eastern Market”, one of the largest markets in North America near Detroit, Michigan.
“Visit Detroit”, the Detroit, Michigan Tourism Office.
Find this column on the site, the app and in the international mobility magazine “Journal des Français à l’avenir.fr”