Ptipois

Indeed, but I believe the Hungarians have a personal food genius. I adore Hungarian cuisine, and I'm not too hot about Austrian cuisine. Sorry if there are any Austrians around, but I seemed to notice that every dish the Hungarians did well, the Austrians did less well. Hungary is (to me) a gastronomic heaven that can be compared to France in some ways. And I don't believe the Italian influence was so important, even if it acted as a trigger. How does a culinary tradition appear and evolve in a given place ? 1) The people who live there have to love eating and drinking, they must have a culture of pleasure (which is not the strong point of the Dutch, btw) - 2) their land, geography, climate, etc., must be suited to well-developed agriculture, fishing, cattle-breeding and, in the case of Hungary, winemaking. But I think the culture of pleasure, and a sense of celebration of God's creation through the things he gives us to eat (this respect and poetry are the root of proper food manipulation, therefore of cooking), and finally a culture of pharmacology through food preparation (common to China, India, the Mediterranean, the Middle East and also rural France) are just as essential. These are the conditions that result in superior cuisines. A royal marriage is not enough.

It is difficult to answer this simply... To sum it up, there is a repertory of "common" dishes that are likely to be made all over the country (blanquette de veau, gigot-flageolets, navarin d'agneau, cailles aux raisins, île flottante, etc.) and regional dishes (ficelles picardes, poulet vallée d'Auge, ratatouille) that are more likely to be made in their own region of origin but are also considered part of the national "heritage" and thus may be prepared anywhere. However, it is rare that even one dish from the common repertory is not attached, more or less, to one particular region. For instance, the navarin d'agneau with flageolet or haricot beans is considered French without being more specific, but its origins are found in the Paris-Ile de France region, and it is a little known fact. To get an idea of this, you may take a look to an old basic French cookbook, like Ginette Mathiot's "Je sais cuisiner", or "Les recettes de tante Marie", whatever, to realize that French cooking is a huge collection of recipes from different regions gathered into a coherent ensemble. In fact, French cooking is very regional.

"Rude and backward nation" — I don't think that's exact. By the way the fork was used by the nobility in Europe since the early Middle Ages and was known long before Catherine de Medici. It was never widely used until the early 19th century; before that, it was more used to hold the meat while cutting it than to take food to one's mouth. Spoons and knives were the norm. Of course the fork is essential to much of Western European cooking as it is now, but Indians and Africans use their fingers to eat and I don't think they could be described as rude and backward.

No way. Importing culture and refinement to a place is one thing, having them take root is quite another thing. The "terrain", the ground where the seed is sown, is primordial. And France had the perfect terrain for the culinary tradition to take root. It already had a past. I really do not think cuisine would have evolved in the Lowlands as it did in France; besides, the Spanish presence in that region has not brought a revolution in cooking either. On the other hand, the Italian presence at the Hungarian court in the Middle Ages and Renaissance has influenced cooking as well, but the results were totally different: they helped to shape a genuinely Hungarian tradition, just as the Italian influence helped to shape a genuinely French tradition without being its main inspiration. Also, it it not true that Catherine de Medici has brought enlightenment to barbarian French cooks, as is often said. Her cooks and gardeners brought fresh vegetables that became very successful, but the mention of petits pois with bacon and lettuce, for instance, existed before her arrival. There already was a strong and fine culinary tradition in France before that, and all influences mixed in gracefully. Also, the Italian influence was mostly on courtly cooking, which is only a small part of the landscape. The addition of new ingredients to the European diet after the discovery of the Americas brought much more of a culinary revolution than courtly influences, which were all over Europe at the time, since courts and aristocracies were supranational.

Where else do they lead? Lyon, perhaps or Oran... ← I do agree with Chefzadi (and Ivan, who wrote my favorite post too). As a general rule I believe that, delicious as it is, Italian cuisine is a bit overestimated the world over and French cuisine a bit underestimated in the way that it is not taken for what it really is. It has been inflated somewhat, made excessively upscale, and its intrinsic simplicity, its humble genius was completely overlooked. Now Italian cuisine is primarily a cuisine based on perfect ingredients with not that much preparation or skill over them. For this reason, perhaps, I think it tastes the best in Italy, in its own surroundings, and I'm not interested in Italian restaurants outside of Italy. French cuisine, in its most traditional and genuine aspects (not the most sophisticated, I insist), has indeed some magic attached to it, something quasi mystical. I believe it's that quasi mystical character that has made it so famous, even though this character may have disappeared in much of modern French cooking. I've known Italian cooking to have just that same kind of magic. But I also noticed that this magic cannot be exported. The French have found a way of codifying it and preserving it, and this union of the mystical-ethereal and the practical is quite unique in Europe.

Up to you, Hiroyuki! But I realize that other subforums (Middle East, Asia, etc.) do dedicate threads to cooking questions. Now I see no reason why the French subforum should be treated differently — although I am well aware of the particular status of French cooking: in its highest aspects, it is too intimidating to allow people ask to questions about it; and in its practical aspects, it has become so well-integrated in the general vision of cuisine, like a synonym of cuisine itself, that it is automatically led to more general subforums. An idea that was beautifully expressed by Ivan ("Whether you're making an ommelette, or stir-frying some greens, or baking some enchiladas, or grilling a burger -- if you honor the soul of what you are cooking, then you are cooking French.") — when I read that I just thought: Wow! Personally, I am for re-establishing the frenchness of my native cuisine and doing it right here! But I agree that many cooking experiments find their natural place in the Cooking Forum.

Well, of course we do. But it's not our strong point, even if some regions are better at it than others.

Reading your post I first thought that you might have searched the Internet using the name "Oiseau" and found nothing... But I searched on amazon.com with the correct name "Loiseau" and, surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be any English translation of the late chef's books. However, I can recommend this book in English.

Please see below. What I would consider a chef-oriented cookbook is just that. Which doesn't mean that all chef books are like this. Good recipe editing (the presence of a good food writer between the chef and the publisher of the book) is what makes all the difference. But sometimes the recipes in illustrious chef books are not supposed to be tried at home, they're only a "monument", a celebration of the chef's art, and there's no need (or even possibility) to apply proper recipe editing there. However, in this case, the book doesn't fall into the category of cookbooks. The problem rises when it is sold and advertised as one.

Not just baguette. Any slice of bread with something spread on it and no second slice of bread on top is a tartine. Before baguettes were common and the most usual bread in France was the large and round tourte or miche, tartines were large slices cut from those breads. The poilâne tartine is actually closer to the old-fashioned tartine than the halved baguette is. Larousse dictionary definition: a slice of bread covered with butter, jam or any food substance soft enough to be spread: preparing tartines for the childrens' goûter. [Zeitoun was right about the original meaning, but now a tartine may be covered with more solid stuff]: tartine de beurre, de pâté. A tartine is also, figuratively, an unusually long, perhaps boring, text or development of an idea. People who explain themselves too lengthily are said to make "une tartine". "Don't make a tartine of it" = make it short. A student who writes a very long dissertation or essay says "je leur ai fait une vraie tartine".

In French: Ginette Mathiot's Je sais cuisiner, Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale, Pellaprat's L'Art culinaire moderne. I think you're all set with those three. Also, books by Françoise Bernard, Bocuse's La Cuisine du marché are classics. My favorite French cookbooks are the ones that propose, everyday, simple recipes with a twist, a "coup de main" that makes them stand out. It is not often possible to identify that sort of books until you start making the recipes and find out that the "twist" is there. For instance, you start roasting a chicken according to the instructions in the book, and by and by you begin to feel like you had never roasted a chicken before. Most of the other cookbooks I use are in English, but in French I like Philippe Delacourcelle's Ma cuisine à fleur d'épices, to me the perfect fusion of spices, Asian techniques and classical, everyday French cooking. It is the only chef book I really like, because it's the least "chef-oriented". And it has "the twist". A humble book published by Fernand Nathan in the early 1980's has proved to be my most cherished cookbook and the one I have used the most. Its title is La Cuisine de ma grand-mère, the author is Paulette Buteux, and the recipes are taken from the author's Vendéenne granny, who obviously was a fantastic cook. Still in the twist department: an enigmatic out-of-print book published in the 60's under a pen-name, Bifrons' 200 Recettes secrètes de la cuisine française, now this is the perfect anthology of twists, there is one at every page. It may still be found at second-hand bookstores and it's a delight. More on this book here.

It's hilarious. Another slow Flash website where you have time to fall asleep before you can click again. Some web designer must have charged a fortune for this There are interesting recipes, though.

The reasons for this are probably many. But I can already point out that French cuisine, by essence, is not suited to street culture. It is indoor food. There are a few things we're not good at: street food, eating at any time of day and night, assembling ingredients into dishes that can be easily portioned and taken away. The structure of our meals and the social aspects of our traditional cooking make French cuisine a little stiff. It is not so mobile and adaptable as other cuisines, because we no longer have a snack culture (we used to, long ago). I've often deplored this.

Well, is it that do you expect you won't, on this particular subject? It's true that the French are not usually big experts on rice. Other nations are much better at it. There are weak points and undeveloped fields in every cuisine and this is one. Our habit of cooking rice in plenty of salted water (riz à la créole) has resulted in much soggy white stuff on dinner tables. But we're pretty good at provençal tians (plenty of flavors), baked rice puddings, and the technique of pilafs cooked in meat stocks has been mastered a long time ago by French cooks, resulting in delicious "riz au gras", my favorite recipe including bay leaf, whole almonds, a few sultanas and petits lardons. I first found the recipe in a Claude Peyrot book, where this rice was to be used as stuffing for a guinea-fowl. It is wonderful and can be served on its own. Just what kind of rice recipe would you like to read about?

You may not find this easily if you live in Lyon, and they are not easy to find elsewhere either, but I've regularly found poulets de Challans to be superior to most poulets de Bresse. The quality of poulet de Bresse really depends on the producer: it may be sublime, or just chicken.

Not in Brittany - all joking apart, there are two schools for the fries. The one-stage fying and the two-stage frying. Which in a way confirms the complexity thing, but if I may allow myself to insist, French restaurant food may be described as complex and sometimes snobbish. French popular traditional food is no more complex or snobbish than British, Chinese, Thai, Mid-Eastern food, etc. Indian cooking, when done properly, IS more complicated than French cooking. It all depends on what you mean by "American cooking many of us grew up with" because I don't have a clear idea of this. See? That's exactly why there's this shyness about French cooking. It exported only its more intimidating aspects while other cuisines didn't. In France, restaurants that require a suit and tie are actually very few. Now let me make this clear: there definitely is a snobbish component in French cuisine, I'm not going to deny that. But it shouldn't paralyze people to the point of ignoring the more human aspects of this (still) living tradition.

I'm using subliminal communication.

Right now there is this fascinating thread on turned vegetables... See, that's about a French cooking technique. I actually wish there were more threads like that one. Thing is, one has to consider the way threads are started in this subsection. They often start on some question about restaurants, how to find such and such a kind of food in some town or region, travel advice, etc. Some people here are knowledgeable about the techniques of French cooking; some (ahem) even are French. But they rarely start a thread about a recipe. Now French cooking isn't only haute cuisine or even fancy bistrot food (which can be very fancy indeed), it is also chicken with tarragon, stockfish à la niçoise, omelette aux cèpes, haricot de mouton, endives au gratin, frisée aux lardons, moules à la poulette, peach cardinale or cake au chocolat et au beurre salé, all dishes that seem to remain hidden behind fancy cuisine. And this cuisine is not more complicated or haughty than any other. But the proof that it is sadly ovelooked lies in Origamicrane's description of French cooking as "having an air of snobbery about it"... Because only haute cuisine and chic restaurant food could fit this description, and they are only a partial aspect of French cuisine. At home, I cook French food when I am too tired or busy to cook Chinese or Thai or North African, etc. To me, French cuisine is the simplest. The stress on restaurant cooking in this subsection probably puts everyday French food in the background. And the French amongst us (I, for instance) never think of starting a thread about poulet à l'estragon because they already know a lot about it and have no special questions to ask. But they (or rather I) sure would love to be asked about it.

Er, at least that's what I understood.

Questioning the old standards may lead us to really think over what we've taken for granted for ages. Including me (who doesn't like turned vegetables). Do I really dislike them? Actually, what is wrong with them? The fact that they make a statement (but I can live with this as long as the result is edible, and I can forget all about it if the result is delicious); more importantly, the fact that most of the time I've found them very badly prepared. Soggy and depressing, as I described. However, when it comes to ensuring that some pan-roasted or baked vegetables cook evenly, by all means let's turn them! Roasting in butter or duck fat, with appropriate seasonings, sounds so much better to me. But it has become rather rare in France. In England, I have had roasted parsnips and carrots with sausages, and they were melting, caramelized, delicious. For some reason the British know how to achieve this with root vegetables, the French have given it up at some point (when steamed vegetables became a norm?). This is the perfect opportunity for turning vegetables, and this way, it all makes sense to me.

That's so sweet of you At least you're not looking at me with a dark disapproving look. (BTW Ptipois = she) I already wrote that I am aware I'm not in the majority. I'm ready to face the consequences. But turned vegetables really bore me, honest. I think they're so dull. On the other hand, I love baby vegetables. They're cute. Especially when they're properly cooked. While staying at Georges Blanc's last year, and having dinner at the restaurant, I was served a small dish of baby vegetables stewed in butter as a side dish. I still remember their beauty, their taste, and the sense of fun and grace expressed by this small dish. Cartoony and tasty at the same time. A sense of fun that's too rarely seen in French haute cuisine. But turned vegetables? Argh! I think I should make myself clearer. First of all, Busboy: "turnips and rutabagas never looked better on a plate". Well, I already said what I thought of turned turnips. But I agree that rutabagas should look good this way, because they need something to make them look better. Any something. So turning seems appropriate in this case, because as a vegetable they do need some sort of treatment. But I don't think other vegetables do as a rule. Second: Bux wrote "I'd hazard a guess it became a standard simply because it made the food look more as if it was prepared by a professional." I realize that this may be one of the reasons why they bother me. As I wrote, I think they look "regularized", i.e. made professionally acceptable. They have "Hey, I've been turned by a chef and we're not here to fool around" written all over them. Enough said. This is very far away from my idea of cooking, the reason why I'm interested in it. Most important. To Fat Guy: I live in France. I don't know about French restaurants in America, or outside of France, but I can imagine that the turned vegetables' situation is different in their birthplace. It seems that where I live, most famous, trendy, successful, or just good chefs have given up turned vegetables some time ago. I just don't see them anymore at haute cuisine or medium-haute cuisine restaurants (where vegetables may be given any possible shape except tourné), or at good bistrots. They have become "ringard", if you know what the word means. And it's not difficult to know why. Because the skill seems to have disappeared from good restaurants and found refuge in mass-produced dishes or low-grade catering. Where do you see turned vegetables in France nowadays, and why are they boring? Because, most of the time, they will be found: - At the buffet de la gare in Romorantin, or Decazeville, or Yvetot, or wherever, adding color to an oversteamed frozen filet of tropical sole (one of the saddest fishes in the world). A drop of canned béarnaise on the side. - At big brasseries, pretty much in the same circumstances. - At the corner café serving plats du jour, i.e. tough steak and frozen frites, rubbery fish fillet, etc. - At chain restaurants, like a certain one specializing in fish. Really nothing to call home about. The turned vegetables will, for instance, try to give moral support to depressed cod fillet and a thimbleful of un-garlicky aioli. - In ready-made dishes, in the frozen food or refrigerated department. In all those cases, the turned vegetables may be described thus: one or two potatoes (either falling apart or tough at the core), one or two carrots, one or two pieces of zucchini (invariably soggy and overcooked, oozing salted water when pressed). Sometimes, the vegetables are still soggy from the water they were cooked in. Sometimes, they are all dried up and beginning to curl up (when they have been steamed or boiled, put on the plate and then popped into a hot oven). If I search my memory, during the last ten years I haven't come across any serving of turned vegetables that was any different from what I just described. I hope this has helped the gentle people here to understand my feeling.

Why seven and not eight: I think it is an example of Escoffier/haute cuisine feng shui whose exact reasons remain unknown to me. I do agree with you, and find myself against the general opinion: every time I see some turned vegetables on a plate (turnips seem to look the most miserable of all), I am instantly filled with a heavy dose of sad, sleepy boredom. They don't even look nice to me. They look regularized.

"Concept" = the place is based on a single idea, in this case the "tartines-only" concept. Cuisine de Bar is quite recent, and so far unique. The "tartines de poilâne" at cafés and wine bars are also a fairly recent concept. The two "Dame Tartine" and the 1960's tartine bar I mentioned on rue Saint-Jacques were considered a new thing when they opened and their formula hasn't been widely imitated. What I meant was that it seemed a bit useless trying to further the search for "little mom and pop restaurants all over the place selling only tartines" now that it is clear that there simply isn't anything in France that fits this description.

La Tartine, rue de Rivoli, is really a wine bar that serves tartines. Like many other wine bars. As was mentioned before, there are two "Dame Tartine" restaurants in Paris. One rue Brisemiche, near Beaubourg, and one in the jardin des Tuileries. They are the only restaurants in Paris that serve nothing but tartines. Back in the Sixties there was a small bar in rue Saint-Jacques that was named "La Tartine" and really served nothing else. It was short-lived and its formula didn't catch on, though later the Poilâne tartine was to become a convenient staple in cafés and wine bars. I can testify that the restaurant "serving nothing but tartines" is no institution in France, though there may be a few "concept" exceptions.

Indeed brunch is popular now in Paris, especially in certain areas. There's a good concentration of brunch places in the 11e (Charonne, Oberkampf, canal Saint-Martin) and in the Marais (3e, 4e). It fits the nightlife scene and the crowd of late risers on weekends. I have good memories of the brunch at Café Charbon (rue Oberkampf, wonderful setting) and au 404 (Momo's Parisian restaurant, opened before he became big in London). There are many more.