This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week’s idiom is, “Ne pas y aller avec le dos de la cuiller.”

Literally translated as, “not going at it with the back of the spoon,” it is a colloquial expression that means acting bluntly and deliberately, without restraint or moderation. It is often used in the context of interpersonal relationships, and especially when someone is particularly plain-spoken about an issue (equivalent then to “not mincing one’s words”).

Note: the French word for spoon can be spelled cuiller or cuillère; both spellings are correct. One should probably choose a spelling and stick to it for the sake of consistency, and when I stop to think about it I prefer the former, but I seem to go back and forth between the two in my writing.

Example: “Tu as lu sa critique du dernier film des frères Coen ? Il n’y va pas avec le dos de la cuiller !” “Did you read his review of the latest Coen brothers movie? He doesn’t go at it with the back of the spoon!”

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

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Once you have a natural starter alive and kicking on your counter, stealing the occasional banana from the fruit bowl, it’s hard to go back to baking bread with commercial yeast.

Not only would that feel like a bit of a betrayal (though you can always blindfold the jar of starter or work under the cover of night) but every loaf is an opportunity to strengthen your starter as well as your skills. And frankly, you’ve gotten used to the vivid flavor and lasting freshness of sourdough-powered bread, so you’re a bit spoiled.

Most breads leavened with commercial yeast can be leavened with a natural starter. It is just a matter of converting the recipe; all you need is a calculator and a play-it-by-ear disposition.

That’s not to say you want to limit yourself to those recipes written with a starter in mind: even though baking with a natural starter has the ancestral high ground and is regaining considerable popularity of late, it is still practiced by a minority of home bakers, and most of the bread recipes out there call for commercial yeast.

But of course, most breads (see caveats below) leavened with commercial yeast can be leavened with a natural starter. It is just a matter of converting the recipe; all you need is a calculator and a play-it-by-ear disposition.

So, how do you go about it? There is no single method* but I have had good success with mine, so I wanted to share it with you below. If you want to chime in with your own method and experience, I’ll be most interested to hear them.

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I hardly ever eat meat or fish when I’m alone. I may have a bit of ham or chicken on occasion if there is some left over from another meal, but other than that, my solo appetite favors a plant-based diet, with a few dairy products (yogurt, cheese) and eggs thrown in.

And because I eat most of my weekday lunches at home, in my own company (I admit I’ve become frightfully attached to the quiet and solitude of my workdays) and as an accidental vegetarian, I started to worry about protein: was I getting enough?

It’s hard to say, since I’m not so worried as to weigh my food and tally up the grams of protein, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to be a little more diligent about my grain-and-legume combos, as in this rice and bean salad.

Getting enough protein from a vegetarian lunch bowl

A quick reminder to those of you who don’t spend their lives reading nutrition articles: most animal products provide what’s called complete proteins, meaning they contain optimal proportions of all the essential amino acids (= the smaller units that constitute proteins) the human body can’t manufacture, and therefore needs to obtain from its diet. Plant products, on the other hand, don’t provide that same balance in essential amino acids, offering good amounts of some and low amounts of others. But as Mother Nature would have it, the amino acids found in grains and those found in legumes are complementary*, so that combining the two essentially results in a complete protein. Ha!

You don’t have to eat the two at the same time — you could eat a grain at one meal and a legume at the next, as the amino acids are said to remain available for a possible hookup for twelve hours — but they happen to go really well together, as illustrated in many culinary cultures**: think couscous and chickpeas, pita and hummus, baked beans on toast, rice and lentils, corn and beans, rice and beans, pasta and beans…

Batch-cooking for easy lunches

And so I resolved to cook a batch of some type of grain and some sort of legume at the beginning of every other week or so, and incorporate it into my lunches on subsequent days. It’s also a big time saver, naturally, because a minimal effort on Monday promises near-instant lunches after that: all I need to do then is add a form of fresh vegetable to the mix, raw or cooked, and we’re in business.

Today’s rice and bean salad is an example of one such preparation: it uses a mix of beans and other legumes I bought on sale at the organic store — it was marketed as a soup helper — and an organic, fair-trade brown rice from Thailand I really like (it is fragrant and not too chewy, and it cooks quickly). The legumes and rice are soaked and cooked separately, then tossed with fresh herbs (chervil, in this case) and a mustardy vinaigrette.

I eat it slightly warm the first day, then cold or at room temperature. It works well over a bed of mixed greens, as a wrap in lettuce leaves or rice paper, plopped in a bowl of soup, or “refried” in a skillet and eaten in a tortilla. In all cases, it is wonderfully filling, improves as it sits, and can be easily transported for lunch at the office, where I hope you’re able to find a little quiet and solitude from time to time.

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* You can get similar results by combining seeds, nuts, and protein-rich vegetables (such as leafy greens or broccoli) with grains and/or legumes.

** I thought about this for a while, but couldn’t find a good grain-and-legume example in the French culinary repertoire, apart from a lentil soup one might eat with bread. Can you think of examples yourself? Update: A reader pointed out that the provençal soupe au pistou is an example, involving beans and pasta. Thanks Anaïk!

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This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week’s idiom is, “Le gratin.”

As cooks may already know, gratin* is the generic French term for preparations (often involving vegetables and some sort of binding sauce) cooked in a baking dish in the oven until the surface browns and becomes crusty.

But it is also a colloquial expression that refers to a social elite, an exclusive crowd who distinguish themselves by their social background, their wealth, their elegance, and/or the select field they work in. It is generally used with a subtle mix of contempt and envy by people who are not a part of that circle.

A close equivalent would be the English idiom the upper crust (before it became a popular name for pizzerias and bakeries).

Though it was originally a matter of social class only, usage of this expression now extends beyond that to consider one’s connections, talent (perceived or real), and popularity: an up-and-coming artist, for instance, can belong to the gratin without being particularly wealthy (yet) or of noble origin. Because of this, the term is often qualified further to specify the traits of the group in question: le gratin du cinéma for the movie crowd, le gratin parisien for the Parisian high society, le gratin mondain for socialites, etc.

It is frequently used with tout (tout le gratin = all the gratin, the whole gratin), which serves to point out that these groups tend to adopt a herd behavior.

Example: “Je suis allée à son vernissage, tout le gratin de la presse était là.” “I went to her vernissage, the whole gratin of the press was there.”

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

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