Ptipois

Thanks Mike, I clearly saw only one negative not two. ← I am wondering what "interested" means. And how different, in this case, it is of "being acquainted". You can be interested in cubist art and be able to view it physically after paying a few euros to a museum. This does not apply to haute cuisine. Most of the population has very little idea of what haute cuisine is, while being aware of its prestige.

As often in France the answer is in "magasins bio" and health food stores, where you may find muscovado sugar, panela, soft brown sugar, light brown sugar, and even Demerara sugar in some places. You may also find a comparable range in gourmet stores like La Grande Epicerie or Lafayette Gourmet. In more everyday stores you may still find "vergeoise" which is soft sugar, brown (vergeoise brune) or light (vergeoise blonde). Though these are beet sugar, not cane. A good substitute for the sugar you are looking for could be vergeoise brune (beet) or muscovado sugar (cane). Cane sugar, of course, tastes better.

French rums are aged in oak casks and their aging undergoes stages like cognac or armagnac. The main particularity of high-quality French rums ("rhums agricoles", compared to rums from other Carribean islands, except Haiti which uses the French method with an extra distillation) is that they are distilled from pure, slightly fermented cane juice (vesou) whereas other rums are distilled from molasses. The process is very much like the cognac process: first wine is made from the juice, then the wine is distilled into a spirit, then the spirit is aged. Low-quality French rum like Negrita is also distilled from molasses. Age is important because all rums spend some time in oak casks, even white rum, which spends about 3 months there before being bottled. Amber rum spends 18 months in oak casks. At least three years of aging are necessary to deserve the name "rhum vieux". VO rum = three years, VSOP = four years, XO or hors d'âge after six years. I do not know much about the way other rums are aged, in what types of casks, etc. La Rhumerie on boulevard Saint-Germain serves a wonderful rum from Trinidad (Angostura), hence distilled from molasses, but judging by the taste I am pretty sure it is aged in oak.

Levure chimique is never in the flour section but always in the baking ingredients section, together with the slivered almonds, vanilla extract, birthday candles, marzipan, dried bakers' yeast, etc. It is conditioned in paper sachets the exact same size as the ones that contain vanilla sugar, the only way you can tell them apart is what's printed on the package. (Edit: while you're looking for baking soda in the salts section, do grab a box of fleur de sel from Algarve, it is excellent stuff. Only Carrefour carries it.)

Right here, John. I don't know what those mean except perhaps combawa peel. And not one single minute too soon.

Sharon, what you are saying is true, there is closedness, etc., but it does refer to a small minority of French people and I do insist on that. Not the average situation, and not the type of persons that visitors to France are likely to be confronted to in most cases. I haven't been confronted to anything like you describe in many years and I do not live in a cave. So maybe I am not educated enough to know better, but frankly I doubt it. This closedness you describe does exist, but it is an extreme situation, which is why I think it should not be given too much importance, for it could be misleading for non-French people. About the other parts of your post, I believe I have already answered them extensively upthread. Thanks for this illuminating example. Without question, this hostess was, by French (and, I believe, universal) standards, extremely rude, and, as I imagine, not very smart. A proper education implies that you never point out to other people — especially to foreigners — their failure to know/follow etiquette. Again, it's the ideal of openness that is greater than the ideal of conformity, and even then the ideal of conformity should not apply since there is, on top of it, the ideal of hospitality. Which comes long before the salad. A hostess is never supposed to criticize her guests in the first place. This woman was not good-mannered. The existence of people who believe they embody the best of French manners while they actually overlook the most basic ones (surely making a foreigner feel comfortable is more important than the way they eat salad) is a vast subject, but it is so foreign to the true French sense of civility that I haven't even brought it up so far.

Baking soda you may find everywhere now, while I think it's a good idea to schlep baking powder from overseas. Raising agents don't make up for heavy luggage anyway.

I have been asking myself the same question. I do not think the substances are identical. I think US baking powder is a mix of sodium bicarbonate + ammonium bicarbonate and perhaps other things too, whereas my previous post will show you the ingredients of levure chimique. It is also called "levure alsacienne" and at first was commercialized by the Alsa brand (former "L'Alsacienne" biscuit and baking company). I also noticed that French levure chimique has a strong taste (you cannot use much of it) while US baking powder is more discrete. I haven't found the raising properties of levure chimique to be astounding anyway. I add a little bicarbonate to help the process.

You may take a closer look on this page. Each package contains seven small paper bags, each one holding one dose (a bit less than 1 tbs) of the mixture (sodium bicarbonate, sodium pyrophospate, wheat flour). You should probably contact the Alsa company, they have been selling the stuff in paper bags for decades and still haven't noticed anything.

As for the secondary question, the answer is easy: baking powder is called "levure chimique" and is bought in small pink paper sachets just about everywhere. Dave, I can't believe you didn't know. As for baking soda, which is less of an everyday ingredient in French kitchens as it is in US kitchens (and I wonder why), ask for "bicarbonate de soude" in any pharmacie. Though small boxes of baking soda are increasingly easy to find in "grandes surfaces" like Champion, Carrefour or Leclerc, right next to the salt.

I never use "cake" flour but, as often as I can, organic 65-type flour, which raises beautifully with the help of baking powder, or baking soda, or just whipped egg whites. There is something evil about French cake flour, I don't know why, but it should be rechristened "flattening agent".

Thanks, Margaret. But I think that French cooking is actually no less mysterious than French manners and that there are terrific cooking discussions still snoring in the dark. But this is how I feel from inside the system, I have to grant that.

Rudimentary self-education, yes of course. Even non-rudimentary self-education, sure, why not? But when a wrong idea of the etiquette system is likely to be spread around (as in that New York Times article or the Polly Platt-orange juice cas d'école), it is also good that someone points out there is a risk of hovering around false problems.

In case that was not clear from what I wrote, this topic was revolving around two main points: 1) a rule of etiquette about the saying of "bon appétit" and 2) later on, another rule of etiquette about going to the bathroom while a) seated at a table and/or b) simply visiting someone's home. Those were the so-called rules I focused on, I wrote what I thought of both, and I was not mentioning good manners in general, or their principle, or their validity. Of course there are common manners and etiquette in France, and most people observe them, some do not — but this is not the point. The point was the bon appétit/bathroom thing. And in that very case it seemed to me that the "rules" were either nonexistent, or of little significance, or a bit silly, or too old-fashioned to be of any pertinence in today's context. If the topic had revolved around elbows on the table or not singing at table, which are still very alive as everyday etiquette rules, my reaction would have been different. I left that particular field to enter a larger and more general discourse only to recall that it might not be necessary, or even advisable, to bother too much about manners in France when, in real life, French people do not always agree about what they are and how important each one is. It may vary dramatically according to the social or cultural background, let alone the regional location. I do put stress on "advisable": as I wrote, the French are less obsessive about manners, not that they have less of them, but they are ideally to be mingled with the gestures of everyday life and mentioned as little as possible. Stating that something is good or bad manners can even be considered rude (I know I am not making things any easier). It is probably because the ideal of tolerance is more important that the ideal of conformity. So what if someone tells a visitor something is bad manners when actually it isn't? They might end up suffering for nothing or putting themselves in a position nobody expects anyone to be in. So, in some cases, it might do more harm than good. Which is why I am not questioning the "genuine interest" and attention to others expressed through this thread, but as a French person the only truly French thing I can say to potential visitors is: if you really ask for our opinion, we do not expect good manners from you as much as we expect spontaneity and openness. What is really painful is seeing you trying too hard, even though we appreciate the attention. I think that is a very French feeling, which you should know about.

As I see the previous posts of this thread have not been read very carefully, since the initial question has been answered long ago, I would like to quote Forest's wise words (from this same thread): One important element to remember, or simply get aware of, is that the French do not have more or less of a manners system than Americans — they have a different attitude to manners. More relaxed, less obsessive, except for a few endangered species whom you're not likely to meet on a daily basis. A good example of that is the fact that only in the US there could be a three-page thread on this tiny aspect of French manners. In France that would be unthinkable. I think that should settle the subject somehow. There are nuances in everything and that probably is the trickiest part to learn about French life (and, while I am at it, this is certainly not particular to France); it requires putting your natural sensors to work instead of acting "according to the book". In France, when everyone is at table, if you do have an urgent need, you do not sit up like a jack-in-the-box and say out loud "excuse me, can I go to the loo?", now that is rude but I think it would be equally rude in the US or in China. You just excuse yourself discreetly (generally to the people sitting next to you) and slip out of the room quickly, and sit back just as discreetly. Nobody in their right mind would consider that rude. As a matter or fact, nobody notices.

Oh, it's a French guy selling Spanish hams. So it's French by concept.

Apéricubes are great! Some flavors are better than others: tomato, ham, onion... They're the quintessential popular French apéritif snack (with the boring apéritif crackers). The advantage is that they're small and do not spoil your appetite. Apart from that, cheese before meals is not a regular habit in France (but diced Holland cheeses or comté, gruyère, etc., on cocktail sticks do exist, there is no rule there, it's just that it's not very common). A little-known fact: cheese has not always been the pre-dessert course in France; before the end of the 17th century it was the final course, and fruit (like pear) was eaten before it to refresh the palate. Hence the expression "entre la poire et le fromage" which means "sometime before the end of a meal".

I can confirm that. His picture may be seen not in kitchens but in chefs' offices. It is meant for staff education, chefs having no need, in this case, to refresh their visual memory.

I am of the same mind as Felice about Le Châteaubriand: it is a risky place. But it is also a place that is worth taking risks, and very few restaurants can claim this particularity. When it is good, it is amazing. When it is bad, it is terrible. But even in spite of my bad experiences there, I still recommend the place.

I should add a few things: the other source of income is absolutely mandatory. With the exception of big guides like Michelin (and others I have no knowledge of, each one having their policy), there is no way an enquêteur could make a living from visiting restaurants for a guide. Some of the time, they actually pay for it. As for the media projects, etc., well — you can only become a "restaurant visitor" through contacts, so it figures that contacts are found in the trade. Also — and this is important —, in the case of the guide Lebey, some of the visitors were businessmen (without any contacts in press or publishing) and it really did not matter to them that their meal was not refunded, since they were doing that for fun and had no financial issues. Which made it impossible for people from press and publishing like me to ask for better conditions — the absence of moral support was tangible. However, some of the business guys (not the journalists, who had a clearer idea of publishing ethics) even had a habit of "losing" the justificatory check and going back to the restaurant to ask for a new one, so that they could have it refunded twice: by the publisher, and by their own company or employer. Of course, this was not included in the policy of the guide. Finally, it was not in the habit of Lebey to have a check presented to him at the end of a meal, and he did visit quite a few restaurants. And whenever an enquêteur was comped, it was considered all the better for everybody. So you see that all those factors, added up, help to explain a bit further why the Guide Lebey was not a large-budget guide (at the time). Of course, it is my experience with only one guide, I have no idea of how things are run regarding other guides.

← I have inside experience of how the Guide Lebey is made, or was made a few years ago, but there's no reason why it should have changed considerably. - Meals are reimbursed by the publisher to the "enquêteur" up to a fixed sum, which is rather small — most restaurant meals cost much more, so it means that most of the time the enquêteur pays for part of it. A small "pige", or payment, is given for each restaurant report, but you may choose to add it to the fixed sum so that you may hope to have your whole meal refunded (which rarely happens). If you choose to do so, your earning is zero. - Only one meal is reimbursed, if you are accompanied by another person it makes no difference. Which I always thought was, methodologically speaking, not a good thing, since eating alone, in my experience, is not the right conditions to judge a meal. Interaction and the ability to taste several choices are important. So, one can say the Guide Lebey is made on a relatively small budget. I heard somewhere (about a guide I don't remember, not the Lebey, maybe it was Michelin) that they found it necessary to go to a restaurant more than once only when the first experience was bad, in order to give an extra chance to the restaurateur, according to the theory that if the restaurant is bad, it may be an accident, but not if it is good. I think that makes sense.

Wise advice from Dave, as usual. The way I'd do it, and have done with success, is send two or three smaller packages instead of a big heavy one, and give noncommittal answers like "perfume", "artifacts", etc., and label the stuff as a gift.

What you just described is a popular French market. They're all over the country. You just have to be careful about the Provençal handicrafts but basically it's at those markets that you will find the best stuff. It will take some picking and browsing, but that's what market shopping is about, and those markets are where the locals shop. I'd be suspicious of a provincial market that wouldn't have the bootleg African music, cheap clothes and acrylic blouses, hardware and knives, roast chickens, cut-price china stalls, with all the interesting stalls mixed in, and would put on an "authentic" or "artisanal" look (I am not mentioning the "marchés biologiques" which are a different matter), for that one would be more likely to be the tourist trap. And, as has also been discussed elsewhere, not all stalls at markets have to be owned by producers. Stuff bought from local wholesalers can be perfectly decent.

Of course, sorry. I wrote "the regions of Anjou and Touraine, around Angers and Tours". I did not mention cities.

There are some Corsican restaurants in Paris but not many Provençal restaurants. A few addresses, without recommendation since I have never been to any of them: Le Bistrot d'Opio on rue Guisarde (6e). La Table des Oliviers, 38 rue Laugier, 17e. Au P'tit Panisse, 35 rue de Montreuil (11e) Les Cigales, 127 rue Cardinet (17e) I feel more secure with Le Quinson, 5, place Etienne-Pernet in the 15e (tél. 01 40 60 33 66). The specialty is bouillabaisse. All in all I think you'd be luckier with Corsican restaurants.