The author of these lines still remembers this Génépi drunk to accompany a nice seasonal raclette… An excess, an overflow then a large caramel, a gerboulade and a clogged bathtub. Bad memories of the holiday season and a deep hatred of Génépi now. So, of course, there are better openings, but the rest of this text doesn’t make you want to go get a burger and fries at the local bistro.
Tonight is Christmas Eve, and we know it, even if sometimes budgets are tight, we have a great time… with overflowing livers. Morgane testifies: “I remember one year when I had the idea of preparing a Jerusalem artichoke puree. Except that apart from the tedious side of the thing (it’s so painful to peel, never again), I had underestimated the carminative power of this vegetable. I don’t know if it’s that or the scallops that accompanied it weren’t fresh… in any case we all had a very flat stomach the next day (to put it nicely). »
“The traditional evening of the 25th is fatal to me”
Morgane, the thirty-year-old from Lyon, is one of our readers who responded to our call for testimonials: “Did you overindulge in Christmas (to the point of being disgusted)? Tell us “. Because the holiday season is generally conducive to huge meals that we often have difficulty digesting, we needed your life, your opinion to open this end-of-year series: “furious feast”, or seven episodes to whet your appetite (or not).
You will learn everything about raclette, you will see how to make Kloug, the real thing, and will know everything about Adolphe-Frédéric of Sweden, the king who died of having eaten too much. Fortunately, our reader Alexandre holds up (a little more) than our crowned Swede. “Every Christmas period, there is no shortage of it. This always occurs on the evening of the 25th, sometimes on the 26th: it’s a liver crisis. “. But the man who calls himself a “bon vivant” “returns there every year”. And for him, it’s “the sequence of 24 in the evening and 25 at noon, with its share of reunions, rich food, good wines, to which” he doesn’t know how to say no. And “if the liver attack” does not occur on “the 25th in the afternoon”, the traditional evening of the 25th which allows him to reunite with his childhood friends (“with the leftovers because as long as that happens”). is, he says, “fatal”.
Corentin “eats too much” during the holidays, he knows, “until [s]’make sick’. “Often, I finish my friends’ plate, because I don’t like to waste but also because it’s so good. I feel like my stomach is telling me ‘stop now’ but I say to myself ‘come on, it can still go in’ and it goes in,” says our 17-year-old Haut-Savoyard. So often, Corentin takes “that last bite” which makes him say to himself “if I eat again, then I will vomit”. And here is our young man who goes to bed on a full stomach and then it’s: “um, stomach hurts and I’m not feeling well, I’m tossing and turning. And then in the end I wake up in the morning and it’s gone. »
Morgane, not stingy with memories and “overflow”, still remembers this Christmas spent for the first time with her in-laws. It was last year. “My boyfriend warned me that their meals were gargantuan,” says Morgane, who lists: enormous aperitif, starter, meat dish, fish dish, cheese, dessert, papillotes, fruit, etc. “We went up to the ski resort for the occasion and one of her sisters and her boyfriend had actually brought… the oven from home,” adds the Lyonnaise who still confides: “as planned, I think we got stuck with the aperitif because there were so many things. The rest lasted us almost a week. »
“I left for six or eight hours to empty myself”
But “it’s okay”, overall, Morgane manages “excess food quite well as long as you wash it down with drink”. The scenario is not the same for Alexandre and his tested stomach. Attention sensitive souls refrain: “I know then that I left for six or eight hours to empty myself, followed by twenty-four hours of fasting and I accept that, sometimes, there is no pleasure without a price to pay. »
Same scenario for Gilles, 29, a fondue subscriber: “I eat a lot of it during meals, and I eat it often and I have more and more difficulty digesting cheese. » And what does it matter about “the next day’s mess”, our Gilles does it again and continues to ingest bread and cheese in quantity. The only solution: “constrain yourself, limit yourself and eat less often”.
Papik also knows “this price to pay” and it made him regret his suit and tie. Our reader spent Christmas in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. “The table was set up in our friends’ garden. Guests must be respected. Also I wear the suit and tie. The meal is very hearty, from turkey to seafood and many other dishes. Argentine wines deserve respect,” he tells us in response to our call for testimonials. In short, everything is fine except the temperature. “At midnight, the thermometer shows more than 30°C. Difficult to finish your plates, difficult to keep your costume on… especially since behind us there is a swimming pool. » And an intoxicated guest bathed “fully clothed”.
“We were clearly in excess”
Anna plans her Christmas menu weeks, even months in advance. To the point that one Christmas, thirteen years ago, she “planned a little too much, thought a little big, went too bold”. The Parisian forty-something ended up “making me vomit [s]has mother and [s]a cousin.” “We were clearly in excess. I don’t even know why I cooked so much. I had spent hours there and I guess my family wanted to honor my dishes. » After this feast, the said family swore never to do it again. “Their kindness cost them a week of hardship. And I distributed my food to the neighbors,” says Anna, who ended up “having some pan-fried foie gras the next day.”
Because, well, no matter your weight and size, your stomach often has the same storage capacity: between one or two liters. No matter the orgy of the day before, the next day you may add a little more to the trash bin. But why the hell? Just because the body spent the night burning calories to digest turkey with chestnuts, Moscow mule, butter cream and Saint-Nectaire. The next day, the body, lacking energy and a bit alcoholic, therefore demands fuel.
And here we go again, for the salmon Wellington. Well, if you’re not Isabelle. Our Internet user’s family is busy at the end of December and beginning of January on the birthday calendar. For Isabelle and as for the rest of the siblings, the stomach is under severe strain from December 23. “Mom was born on the 23rd, Christmas is on the 24th, the 31st is New Year’s Eve and I was born on January 3rd. Then there is Epiphany and its cake, our reader lists. I assure you that we tried to keep up the pace, but that we quickly gave up due to general family demand. »