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, “Avoir la pêche.”

Literally translated as, “having the peach,” it means being in high spirits, having a lot of energy, feeling great physically and/or mentally — in other words, feeling peachy! It is an informal expression that is only used in casual conversation, but is not vulgar.

Example: “Eh ben dis-donc, t’as la pêche, ce matin !” “Well, you certainly are in high spirits this morning!”

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

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A year ago today, my sister gave birth to a healthy baby boy; the next morning, Maxence and I were on a train to visit them at the hospital. He was the freshest newborn I’d ever held, and for weeks afterward, the most mundane display of emotion I witnessed — in a film, in a book, on the street — could make me weep. I was an aunt, and not just one in a dozen, either: that baby’s one and only aunt.

This unique position comes with great responsibility. Obviously I plan to be the really cool aunt, not the one with the prickly chin and the funny smell, and my strategy includes volunteering as the official birthday cake baker. And when we celebrated my nephew’s first birthday a little early — you can’t get hung up on exact dates when you live a Channel apart — this is what I baked.

The cake was moist, moderately sweet, and nicely aromatic — exactly what I was hoping to achieve.

Paul is too little to care much about a cake shaped like a train or Tintin’s rocket (though my father would certainly enjoy the latter), so I thought I would instead bake a simple one that might please a baby’s palate.

I followed Maxence’s not uncharacteristic suggestion of a gâteau au yaourt — a child-friendly cake if there ever was one — with two modifications: I sweetened it with maple sugar from a package of samples I recently received, and crowned it with thin slices of apple. This produced a moist, moderately sweet, and nicely aromatic cake — exactly what I was hoping to achieve.

And what did the birthday boy think? Well, the birthday boy chose to fall asleep before dessert. And since waking a baby from his nap to feed him cake is not something young parents are wont to do, the grownups partook of the cake in his honor. But my sister did feed him a sliver later that day, and she tells me he kept asking for more, so it seems it was a success — as were the gifts we’d chosen for him, a toy xylophone and a squeaky caterpillar.

Joyeux anniversaire Paul !

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Photography by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra.

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, “Manger dans la main de quelqu’un.”

Literally translated as, “eating out of someone’s hand,” it means submitting to someone, yielding to someone’s opinion or authority, acting in a docile or obsequious way with someone, in the hopes of gaining something in return. Although it is not as bad as grovelling, it is still used with a negative connotation, implying that the subject is losing some dignity in doing so.

Example: “Il ne supporte pas ses beaux-parents, mais comme ils ont des relations, il leur mange dans la main.” “He can’t stand his in-laws, but since they’re well connected, he eats out of their hand.”

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

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If you’ve been invited to dinner at my house lately, the odds are high that you’ve been greeted with a glass of chilled white wine and a platter of multigrain crackers topped with this bright green spread. “Guacamole?” you may have asked. “No, peacamole!” I’ll have responded, or rather, if you and I speak French together: poicamole*.

I have made and served countless batches of this spread over the past couple of months. It is absolutely not green pea season, though that happy day will come soon enough, but frozen peas have recently become a staple of my cooking wardrobe (why it took me so long to adopt them, I know not), making this a quickly assembled appetizer.

What’s peacamole?

It is a rich-textured spread that’s sweet and earthy from the peas, subtly nutty from the use of almond butter, and livened up by the signature zing of cilantro**. Spread on the spelt crispbreads I buy at the supermarket and can’t get enough of, it makes absolutely irresistible bites. And if I’m lucky and I have leftovers, I pair the peacamole-covered crackers with a beet and carrot salad and a soft-boiled egg for a very good solo lunch.

I initially developed this recipe for ELLE à table, the French cooking magazine in which I write a bimonthly column: it came to illustrate a story in this month’s issue (#63) about the increasingly frequent intersections between the worlds of perfume and cuisine.

Peacamole: A simple spread made with green peas and cilantro

One of the examples I give is that of essential oils: these highly concentrated plant extracts have long been used in fragrances and cosmetics, but are now made available in organic, edible versions*** for cooks to use, oh-so-sparingly, in their dishes, emulating the flavor of a fresh spice, fruit, flower, or herb — here, cilantro. (Note that the recipe below includes a variation using fresh cilantro leaves.)

Essential oils are so supercharged that a drop or two is usually plenty, and because oil doesn’t dilute in water, it should be added into the dish along with an oil-like element or liquid sweetener. The flavoring power of essential oils weakens when they’re heated, so they are best added at the very last minute, or used in a no-cook preparation such as this one. If you wish to bake with them, you’ll need to use a little more. Experimentation is the name of the game****, but you should always err on the side of caution; add one drop too many and your dish may be inedible.

As a side discovery, I’ve also found that frozen peas can be steamed in a rice cooker. Who knew? You just place the peas in the bowl, put the lid on, and set it on “cook” for 14 minutes, or until tender. I don’t own a steamer, so I normally steam vegetables using bamboo baskets over a pan of boiling water; this method is simpler, faster and, with my kitchen setup at least, more energy-efficient.

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* A green pea = un petit pois, hence peacamole = poicamole.
** As always, cilantro haters are welcome to use the herb of their choice (flat-leaf parsley, chervil, basil, mint…) instead.
*** Note that essential oils should not be consumed by pregnant or breast-feeding women, young children, or people with allergies.
**** I don’t know of an English-language recipe book that would guide you in these experimentations, but if you read French, you can take a look at Valérie Cupillard‘s book, Cuisiner avec les huiles essentielles (La Plage, 2006).

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