French Food in all its glory and gore

[John Talbott]

Picking up on a recent post from Pti

They're one of the great inventions of French industrial food ("industrial" not meaning "low quality").

I thought about the number of times I've thrown out/about words like industrial/artisinal and I realized I probably malign many producers/importers/sellers.

Case in point: this week I bought peaches from Spain and tomatoes from Belgium in my local market, because I "needed/wanted" them, not because they were in the markets now (that is, from outside growing conditions in France) but they served their purpose, that is, once prepared, they weren't all that bad.

So my query is this - isn't it better to have genetically-modified, glass-house, Margrebian-grown, chemically-overdoused crap that you "need/want" all year than bio-green-proper-in season stuff? (If this doesn't start a global/serious/WWIII food fight, I've truly lost it).

John

[Ptipois]

So my query is this - isn't it better to have genetically-modified, glass-house, Margrebian-grown, chemically-overdoused crap that you "need/want" all year than bio-green-proper-in season stuff?  (If this doesn't start a global/serious/WWIII food fight, I've truly lost it).

John

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The last time I needed/wanted something out of its season was when I was pregnant, and that was more than 20 years ago. So my own answer will be no. And seasonal means "with taste".

Edit: the peaches and tomatoes you bought may be a little less tasty than full season fruit, but Summer is close and they are not completely out of season. But try to buy tomatoes in December...

Edited June 8, 2007 by Ptipois (log)

[docsconz]

John, I think that there is a place for out-of-season foods, though they are clearly inferior with few exceptions to in-season produce. I personally don't mind the idea of ordering from other parts of the world to get the best and globalization has allowed that to occur to some degree (In the US it is hard to beat the flavor and juiciness of the peaches and other fruit from Frog Hollow in California, but they are definitely shipped in-season and are quite pricey as a result. One of the glories of eating in France as well as other parts of Europe is the amazing variety that eating seasonally offers. It is fun to look forward to the season of that special fruit or crustacean that one cherishes!

[Carlsbad]

The answer is "No".

[docsconz]

Doesn't look like much of a skirmish let alone a WWIII foodfight, John Nevertheless, I am quite sure that you haven't "lost it"!

[Ptipois]

Try harder John! You can still have us tear each other's hair about this topic.

Let me rephrase it a different way and hope it helps: leaning on the Apéricube factor, I believe that some creations (recent or not) of the French food industry are quite respectable, while there is some fake artisanal stuff. Has anyone found any examples of that so far? How about exploring that during the next visit to France, or summon memories?

To complicate the subject even further, there is also industrial food mimicking artisanal food (insipid cheeses like Le Vieux Pané, Chaumes, Belle des Champs, etc.), based on the old French nostalgy of "the Earth". Whereas there are "industrial" foods that do not pretend to be artisanal but manage to be quite good. Labeyrie duck foie gras (bloc avec morceaux) is found in most supermarkets. It is one of the best mi-cuit foies gras available in France.

Even more complication: some cheeses from semi-industrial laiteries, for instance the Coutançais or the Boursault, are found in supermarkets, but they need not blush when a good fromager puts properly aged versions of them aside their boulettes d'Avesnes or their crottins de Chavignol. There is a Breton salted butter, found in lower Finistère supermarkets (and nowhere else), which I hold much higher than Bordier's.

Industrial versus artisanal food in France is a complex subject, which deserves to be discussed a bit further. But I do not believe the topic on out-of-season fruit and vegetable would take us very far, since their relative insipidity remains unchanged.

[sharonb]

Great post! This is a fascinating topic. From the rillettes du Mans in supermarkets, with olde fashioned packaging, to things like cheeses with checkered cloth in the box...

I cordially disagree about Labeyrie's foie gras (beurk) - though their cured duck breast slices are better than some I've tasted from butchers' and are always a go-to for me - so I agree that there can be good things to single out from industrial food products.

What about Label Rouge? Does that mean anything? Does a supermarket packaged ham (jambon de Paris) with a Label Rouge taste like (or close to) a ham cooked and sliced by a charcutier?

I am in a reformed period in any case, now. I used to be with someone (for six years, after all) who bristled at anything from a supermarket; he did all his shopping in the market street. Supermarkets were for toilet paper and laundry detergent.

My current bf is more open. Sometimes we use (gasp!) frozen salsify from Picard and our fridge contains Président brand butter, not something artisanal...

[Ptipois]

Normally Label Rouge is supposed to indicate good quality, but sometimes you really wonder why it's there. There is a world of difference between a yellow Landes chicken and the Label Rouge chicken sold by Leader Price. I think each case needs testing, and only experience can be trusted.

[docsconz]

My current bf is more open. Sometimes we use (gasp!) frozen salsify from Picard and our fridge contains Président brand butter, not something artisanal...

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Funny thing is Président is one of the better butters available in the US. What that says is that a lot of French industrial food is still better than most of what is available in the US. Real artisanal butter is very difficult to find in the US. One generally has to settle for the best of the industrial brands.

[Abra]

Not to mention that President feta is one of the best value fetas you can get here, especially at Costco where it's stupendously cheap.

I can't wait until I'm living in France so I can really participate in this forum!

[John Talbott]

My current bf is more open. Sometimes we use (gasp!) frozen salsify from Picard and our fridge contains Président brand butter, not something artisanal...

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Funny thing is Président is one of the better butters available in the US. What that says is that a lot of French industrial food is still better than most of what is available in the US. Real artisanal butter is very difficult to find in the US. One generally has to settle for the best of the industrial brands.

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Once again, I'm guilty as charged; I have both President and artisanal butter from Quatrehomme. I pretend I use them for different things.

[robert brown]

John, meet me at dawn at Pere Lachaise. Don't forget your pistol.

I'm sure you know a lot more about obsessions than I do, but I have to say that I avoid food out of season except when needed to make an overall dish I might be in the mood for. I could carry on non-stop about how the foodie boom has actually planted the seeds of the steady erosion of gastronomy as some of us used to know it. The example above in which Ptipos cites the phenomenon I only noticed last year at the Carrefour or Lafayette Gourment of industrial food producers packaging their wares to give the impression of artisinal food is a tellling one, as is people in the food press who say how wonderful it is that so many foods are available year round. Best I stop here on what could be a book-length subject.