Lost in Translation One Hundred and Eight.

I used to be such a good blogger, up to a few years ago now I would frequently manage about 20 entries a month, now I am lucky if I get to ten.
Partly to blame is facebook, so immediate and so many comments , partly it is because the dread spam commenters began to fill up my blog comment box until I was forced to turn it off.
One of the things I used to blog about was the differences between the languages, and, I had a frequent piece going which I called “Lost in Translation”. These I used to number and by last December (my last one) I had got to One Hundred and Seven, so here, nearly a year later, is number One Hundred and Eight:
My favourite recipe book of the last twelve months is, without doubt, Caroline Conran’s “Sud de France- The Food and Cooking of the Languedoc”. She lives only up the road and all the ingredients I can get locally and she has both a scholar’s and a cook’s eye for a recipe. This morning getting up both early and hungry (inevitable result of one of my fast days) I decided to try her recipe for Olive cake. Now this is where the Lost in Translation kicks in.
Cake , a la francaise, is a savoury loaf. This can come as a bit of a surprise when you bite into what you suppose to be a fruit bread and end up with a mouthful of something savoury and possibly cheesy.
Gateau, we all learned in school, is the French for cake. Right ? Wrong.
Gateau, as practiced in France is really anything sweet, even a little plain biscuit. So when someone offers you a a “little gateau” with your coffee don’t get out the spoon and fork expecting a meringue confection or something creamy from the Black Forest- you may well end up with a simple Langue de Chat on your plate.
Caroline’s Olive Cake is a good Example of the French take on Cake.
Cake aux Olives.
Two 500g loaf tins.
500g White Bread Flour,1/2 Teaspoon Salt,20g Baking Powder,4 Eggs Beaten,125 ml Olive oil, 125ml water,150g Gruyere grated,150g stoned black Olives coarsely cut into large pieces.
Heat the oven to 220C. Mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, water, olive oil and eggs and mix to a smooth dough. Add the cheese and the olives a little at a time working them in to form a dough.
(I had to add some extra flour at this stage to make it manageable)
Place the dough into the two tins and leave to develop for 15 to 20 mts. Cook at the set temperature for 35 mts until a skewer comes out clean. Leave on a rack to cool before slicing.