What is a typical French Christmas dinner?
It is a sequence, not a spread. An American holiday table puts everything out at once and lets people build a plate. A French one arrives in courses, each with its own plate and often its own wine, and you are not meant to be full until the end. It is the everyday logic of a French dinner at home, turned up as far as it goes.
The order is fixed: apéritif, starter, main course, cheese, dessert. What goes into each slot changes with the region and the family, but nobody moves the slots.
What do the French serve as a Christmas starter?
The luxurious things, in small amounts. Oysters are the classic, served raw on ice with lemon, rye bread and salted butter. France eats a large share of its oysters for the whole year in the last weeks of December. If you grew up thinking of oysters as a summer food, this takes some adjusting to.
The other great starter is foie gras, served cold in slices with toast and something sweet, a fig or onion chutney. Then there is smoked salmon, scallops (coquilles Saint-Jacques), snails in garlic butter, and boudin blanc, a delicate white sausage that appears in shops for the season.
A generous table will serve two of these, one after the other. This is the stage at which an American guest thinks dinner is going very well and is nearly over. It has not started.
What is the main course at a French Christmas dinner?
A roast bird. The traditional choice is a chapon, a capon, which is richer and more tender than a chicken. Turkey with chestnuts, dinde aux marrons, is just as classic. So the French do eat turkey at a winter holiday; they simply serve it a month later than we do, to fewer people, with a chestnut stuffing and no cranberry.
Guinea fowl, goose and, on the coast, a whole fish are all common too. The sides are few: chestnuts, a potato gratin such as gratin dauphinois, green beans. Nobody makes seven of them.
Is there a cheese course at Christmas?
Of course there is. It comes after the main course and before dessert, as it does at any proper French dinner, with a green salad to make you feel sensible. If you have not met the custom, the cheese course is explained here.
At Christmas the board gets a seasonal guest: a Mont d’Or, a soft cheese sold in a spruce box that is only made in the colder months, eaten with a spoon.
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Take the quizWhat is dessert at a French Christmas dinner?
La bûche de Noël, a rolled sponge cake filled and covered with cream and decorated to look like a log. It is on virtually every table in France, and most of them were bought, not baked. I have written about both options, with a recipe, in bûche de Noël.
After the bûche come the small things that stay on the table for the rest of the night: clementines, chocolates, candied chestnuts (marrons glacés), and in Lyon, papillotes, chocolates wrapped in paper with a little message inside. In Provence the tradition is thirteen desserts, a whole table of dried fruit, nuts, nougat and a sweet olive-oil bread.
Presents come after dinner in many families, or the next morning. What the French give is in French Christmas gifts, and the rest of the evening is in how the French celebrate Christmas.
How long does a French Christmas dinner last?
Three to four hours is ordinary. It starts late, by American standards, and the gaps between courses are part of the meal. People talk. Children leave the table and come back. Nobody clears your plate to hurry you along.
The portions make this possible. Each course is small, which is the same principle as French portions the rest of the year. You eat six things and stand up at midnight feeling better than you do after one American plate at three in the afternoon.
A French Christmas dinner, course by course
| Course | What is served | To drink |
|---|---|---|
| Apéritif | Gougères, smoked salmon on blinis, small bites | Champagne |
| Starter | Oysters, foie gras, scallops or snails | A dry white, or Sauternes with foie gras |
| Main course | Capon or turkey with chestnuts, a gratin, green beans | A red Burgundy or Bordeaux |
| Cheese | A few cheeses, a green salad | The rest of the red |
| Dessert | Bûche de Noël | Champagne again |
| Afterwards | Clementines, chocolates, marrons glacés | Coffee, and for some a digestif |
Questions, answered
What do the French eat for Christmas dinner?
Typically oysters, smoked salmon or foie gras to start, then a roast capon or turkey with chestnuts, then cheese, and a bûche de Noël for dessert, with champagne to begin.
Do the French eat turkey at Christmas?
Yes. Turkey with chestnuts, dinde aux marrons, is one of the classic Christmas main courses, alongside capon.
Why do the French eat oysters at Christmas?
Oysters are at their best in the cold months and are a traditional luxury for the year-end holidays. A large share of France’s annual oysters are eaten in late December.
What is the French Christmas dessert?
La bûche de Noël, a rolled sponge cake decorated to look like a log. In Provence, families also serve the thirteen desserts.
When is Christmas dinner eaten in France?
On the evening of 24 December. The meal is called le réveillon and often lasts past midnight.
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