The monthly e-newsletter of the venerable James Beard Foundation included the following informative food note on “eggnog.” The blurb was particularly interesting thanks to the dish–foie gras frothed with eggnog foam–that chef Pascal Chureau, of Portland’s Lucier restaurant, will serve this evening at the Beard House during his “Northwest Passage to Modern Europe” dinner. View the complete menu here.  

Lait de Poule

WHAT? Which came first: the chicken or the eggnog? Although lait de poule translates, unappetizingly, as “chicken milk,” it’s actually the French name for eggnog, that seemingly harmless beverage that has been known to lure many naïve merrymakers into making fools of themselves at office holiday parties. Though eggnog is said to owe its heritage to posset, an English drink popular among early American colonists, food writer Robert Sietsema points out that the “aggressively luxurious” egg-and-cream-filled drink is infinitely more French in character and may in fact be an American version of an 18th-century French recipe. This month at the Beard House, Pascal Chureau of Lucier in Portland, Oregon, validates this theory by serving a froth of lait de poule with the ultimate French dish, foie gras.