Food, part I

Food is an integral part of French culture, so I guess it's not surprising that I get a lot of questions about it.  Not questions so much as, "Omg the food there must be amazing!"  Or sometimes, "How do French people stay so slim with the kind of food they eat?"

To respond: yes, food here is very good, and overall I would say a higher quality than food in the US; French people don't actually eat most of our stereotypes of "French food" that often, and have generally very different eating habits.

For many years in English-speaking countries, French cuisine was considered the very highest, fanciest level of food.  I just did a quick Google search of French food main courses and came up with: boeuf bourguignon; French toast stuffed with brie; braised rabbit; chicken in cream sauce; beef tenderloin in wine sauce; cheese souffle...

This is very much not what French people eat on a day-to-day basis, but it is more similar to what you would find in a French restaurant in the US.  All those heavy cream sauces and large amounts of red meat, etc, are unusual fare.  What is true: there are LOTS of pastries, all the time.  Many people have a croissant (very buttery of course) or pain au chocolat (basically a croissant stuffed with chocolate) every day, and many people will get a dessert pastry or little cake once or twice a week.  And many, if not most, French adults have at least one unit of alcohol - normally wine, but often beer - per day.  Bread is a huge staple of a daily diet as well; most small families can easily go through a baguette every day.

The biggest difference I see between French and American food cultures is how we eat (approach to food) and the starting point of the food we eat.

Firstly, the French absolutely love their fruits and vegetables.  I've never been in a French home - even of poor college students - that did not have at the very least one or two large bowls full of fruit all the time and vegetables filling the fridge.  The couple I lived with the first time I studied here had almost their whole small patio dedicated to housing their supply of produce, and the family I'm working for now always has a huge amount of fruits and nuts - I'm talking feet of counter space - and two fridge drawers of vegetables.  They replenish a few times a week.

Generally vegetables, while not the highlight of a dinner, take up about half of one's meal.  It is exceptional to have more than a small portion of red meat at dinner and it is much more often chicken or some such. 


In both families, dessert was/is almost always a piece of fruit or a yogurt.  Sometimes with the family I work for there is one ice cream cone per two children after dinner.  More often than that it's a small piece of chocolate, usually dark. 


Overall portions are much smaller here than in the US, even (or especially) in restaurants. 


Finally, and probably most importantly, food is very much respected here.  A lot of time is set aside for a meal - to enjoy it, to chat, to people-watch or read if you're alone.  School children and working people usually get an hour and a half or two hours for lunch and their day ends a little later.  You will rarely find a French person eating while walking or in the Metro. 


Every loaf of bread I have ever bought living here has come direct from a baker and was baked the day I bought it.  The ingredients in these are super simple, with no additives or preservatives - just the way you would bake it if you made it at home.  Same thing for the pastries and desserts you can find in any bakery.  It isn't a matter of principle or pride, like it would be in some shops in the US, it's just the way things are done here.  Why buy a processed loaf of bread when there are delicious bakeries on every other corner?

Cheese/dairy shops, butcher shops, all those places have similarly fresh, straightforward products.  You won't find a load of chemicals in any of them.

The packaged and processed foods here are also generally less so than in the US, I think because they're competing with the products I just described.  There are regulations about how much high fructose corn syrup food companies may use (though I have no idea what those are) such that, for example, Coca Cola uses real sugar instead in its products here.  This might also be a function of the fact that a lot of French overseas departements (protectorates, I guess) rely heavily on sugar production; I'm not sure.

So we end up having higher quality ingredients to start with here, and processed products do not have the same advantage here as they do in the US: if you're buying for many people it's often considerably cheaper to buy fresh foods.

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Hooray, French food!  Delicious, fresh, and fairly cheap, how can you go wrong?

Well, I've just spent a good amount of space praising the food culture here so I probably shouldn't complain too much.  But!  There are some odd things I just can't find here, and some are a little baffling.

First and foremost: peanut butter!  It just seems to...not exist here.  This came up a couple of days ago when J asked me what my favorite flavor of fudge is.  I said peanut butter and he didn't understand.  I described it and he said he'd never heard of it, though he did say defensively "we do have peanuts, though!"  This is unfortunate because 1) I think the kids would love peanut butter cookies and 2) sometimes you just want a peanut butter sandwich, you know?

Secondly, because they go together in my mind, marshmallows.  I've never seen any here.

Canned soup.  You won't find any canned chicken noodle soup, minestrone, etc here.  You might find it in a mix.  You will find boxed vegetable veloutes or cream soups.  This is probably healthier I guess but I'm dying for some of the vegetable, black bean, or pasta soups I love in the US.  Sure, I could make them, but that takes some effort!

Anything spicy.  I've discovered that the French hate spicy food.  Not hate, exactly, but you will certainly not find anything I would call "spicy" without looking pretty hard.  They will say that some (to my mind) mild Chinese, Indian, or Vietnamese food is "spicy" when it's clearly not.  They don't really even do the spicier Italian sauces or sausages.  My mother suggested that this is because French cuisine is all about herbs and they just don't really have a taste for spice or don't like it overpowering the herbs.  Either way, I want some good, spicy Mexican food.

Lastly, this isn't exactly a lack, but Parisians are weirdly obsessed with cookies.  Big, soft cookies generally, but cookies in general.  I would compare it to the cupcake obsession in NYC: there are "designer" cookies and some little cookie boutique-type things.  But they're also kind of regarded as a very special, high class treat that aren't really for making at home.  I find this bizarre because cookies are so easy to make - and they're not eating especially complicated ones, usually chocolate chip or sugar cookies or something.

Their fondness for fudge and brownies is sort of similar, but to a lesser degree.  All of these things are considered very American.  When I talked to J about making them himself he seemed surprised at the idea.

Wow, this has been much longer than I intended.  To be fair, I'm hungry!