Barbizon Rallye - 2 : Food and Music Suggested by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Rallye: French Barbizon Painting School Game Created by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Rallye Set-Up for Teens and Older

Armchair and in-country travelers to France and art lovers everywhere can do this rallye (aristocratic, junior cocktail party) with a French buffet (see below), activities for young and old, dancing, singing, poetry writing, and art activities.

Matrons organize these parties and play music they like to dance to in the dining room while the teens and college grads dance in the salon (living room).  (Sometimes they laugh about mom’s music, too.)

I would hand out lyric sheets for the music, so everyone could learn the words and rhythms of several languages.  Rallye participants can appear to effortlessly dance and sing to these artists when they go to corporate office parties and nightclubs with a little practice:

Eros Ramatozzi (sings in Italian and Spanish)

Beyoncé (sings in English and Spanish)

Céline Dion (sings in French and English)

Madonna (sings in English and encourages lots of dancing)

Tina Turner (sings in English and also encourages lots of dancing)

MC Solaar (French Rapper of African origin)

Dio (Canadian who sings in English with songs that can bring out the Sans Culotte Revolutionary in even aristocrats)

Jean-Michel Jarre (For his French Electronika album featuring various artists)

Rachid Taha (French rapper with Algerian ancestry, who sings in French and Arabic)

Joan Armatrading (Sings in British English)

Falco (Austrian singer who sang in German and English)

Hand out lyric sheets, so rallye participants can learn the rhythms and words to these songs in Arabic, American and British English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian.

Rallye Buffet Food Items and Drinks

Rallyes are not strong on food usually, because the teens and college grads want to look good in their designer clothes and not stain them for photographs. 

However, I think there are many non-messy nutritious items that you can serve at rallyes in homes or on picnics as you tour the village of Barbizon and the Forest at Fontainebleau to see first hand what the Barbizon painters wanted to preserve in their paintings.

I would serve food items such as the following:

Baguette Sandwiches - cut these into 2-inch pieces, so you can mix and match a variety of them

Jambon-fromage – (ham and thin slices of Brie de Meaux or Brie de Melun)

Jardinière – (seasonal vegetables with homemade mayonnaise made of egg yolks and olive or sunflower oil)

Thon – (baked tuna fillet with homemade mayonnaise and lettuce and tomato)

Fromage – (Brie de Meaux or Brie de Melun with butter)

Jambon – Beurre – (ham with butter)

In France, you can buy sandwiches like the ones above at almost any bakery.  The chain Chez Paul sells these sandwiches in almost all the malls of France for in-country tourists, who are looking for a quick bite to eat as they purchase souvenirs. 

The French do not subsist on sandwiches alone.  After going to the bakery, they go to the “traiteur” known as a “delicatessen” in the United States or “feinkost” in Germany for salads to go with sandwiches.

You can buy the following salads at a traiteur for your rallye buffet table.  They are not very expensive or difficult to make at home, though, if you know how to cook.  Most of them can be made ahead of time and served at room temperature.  They are also surprisingly healthy for you:

Champignons à la Grecque (Mushrooms in the Greek Style) – Despite the name of this dish, this dish is French.  It is a pickled salad using Parisian button mushrooms, tomatoes, and onions.  The pickling comes from boiling the ingredients briefly in vinegar and lemon juice with olive oil added at the end.  Pickling these ingredients keeps them from spoiling quickly in the heat.

Moroccan Tangerine, Crushed Walnut, and Ice Berg Lettuce Salad with Orange-Blossom Water Dressing – This salad is modified from Paula Wolfert’s recipe in Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco.

Steamed Carrot Purée with Cayenne Pepper to Spread on Baguette Slices – serve this item like hummus

Baked, Peeled, and Sliced Pepper (Chiles) Salad with Olive Oil Dressing – This dish is dressed lightly with olive oil

Boiled Brown Lentil Salad with Lemon Juice, Olive Oil, and Cumin – this is an Egyptian salad that many people in Provence also eat

2-inch Sections of Vietnamese Imperial Rolls – these rolls usually contain shrimp, pork, rice noodle, and cilantro inside a rice paper cover – Vietnam was once part of the French colony of Indochina. 

Patatas Bravas – this dish is from Spain where many French people go on vacation.  You cut potatoes into cubes and fry them in olive oil until cooked.  Then, you sprinkle cayenne and sea salt on them.  They are served at room temperature with toothpicks for easy serving on trays.

There are many great appetizer ideas in:

Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean Cookery

Clifford Wright’s The Little Foods of the Mediterranean: 500 Fabulous Recipes for Antipasti, Tapas, Hors d’Oeuvre, Meze, and More

Culinary Institute of America’s Hors d’Oeuvre at Home with the Culinary Institute of America

All of these French rallyes have dainty desserts.  The teens and college grads do not eat them usually; the chaperones eat them with coffee between making introductions of guests as they arrive to other guests invited to the group.

The rallye organizers usually introduce each guest to different groups, let them know where the bathrooms are so they can freshen up, and invite them to get something to eat and drink when they feel like it.

The desserts are usually items such as:

-small fruit tarts with pastry cream bottoms

-éclairs with chocolate pastry cream filling

-Napoleon pastries (Mille-Feuille layered phyllo pastries with pastry cream)

Drinks for a Mixed-Ages Rallye in France:

Drinks for a mixed-ages rallye would be Italian and French sodas with a non-alcoholic punch.  Non-alcoholic punches are usually made beforehand with ingredients such as mango nectar, Grenadine syrup, and carbonated water.

You keep these punches refrigerated until serving with one set out on a tray to show what the punch cocktail looks like garnished.  Punches are usually served in triangular-shaped glasses and are usually garnished with a sword skewer of Maraschino cherries and pineapple slices.

Obviously, what you do for a French Barbizon School of Painting Rallye Game can be done indoors or in th “plein air” or outside as they painted.

Final Question – “What are the characteristics of the Barbizon School, especially those that differentiate it from the Impressionists who also painted outside?

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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