Pot-au-Feu

So you know how my Mom asked me if I'd had anything culturally-specific when I was in Quebec, and I said no? (She mentioned this in an email). Yeah, well, I was wrong.

My second host mother's specialty dish was something called Pot-au-Feu. It's a French (I think more traditionally France French) dish consisting of beef and other meats of choice, along with vegetables such as carrots, turnips, leeks, celery, and onion, stewed in a pot.

I think Pot-au-Feu means "Pot of fire" in French. More literally, it means "Pot-to-fire" which I guess also kind of makes sense.

Here's an image:

Oddly, my family called it "couscous", which is why I didn't immediately recognize it as an exotic dish. In Mali, we had this grainy substance that was also called "couscous". My Counterpart called the Quebec dish "Couscous Arabic" and the grainy stuff "Couscous Malian". Confusing to me, because they seem like completely different dishes.

Here's a pic of "Couscous Malian"

The Pot-au-Feu was served with the couscous grain, but it wasn't the main focus, so I don't know why both the Quebecois and the Malians would put the most emphasis on it.