French Food Culture

[Thanks for the Crepes]

19 hours ago, DianaB said:

When we first started spending topi me in France there were no breakfast cereals for example, now there are aisles of them, just like in England.

 

I give up, DianaB. It sounds like "topi me" is some kind of holiday I had not heard of, but Mr. Google was no help at all. What is it?

 

I enjoyed your thoughtful post, and I am sure there is another one on eG somewhere that refers to the microwave type premade meals that many in France decry but have crept into current restaurants. I seem to remember it was a very well respected media article link, and I'm off to attempt to find it.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Found it!

 

The link to the article "In France, A Battle to Keep Menus Fresh" I remembered from the NY Times. I want to say it was @liuzhou who linked to it originally on eG, but with my older memory, I can't be completely sure. Sorry if I am wrong, but I spent 10 minutes searching on Google on the eG site, and no hits. It is here somewhere, because I do not peruse the Times unless directed from here. Many apologies if I am incorrect about the member who originally linked this article.

[liuzhou]

2 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

 I want to say it was @liuzhou who linked to it originally on eG, but with my older memory, I can't be completely sure. Sorry if I am wrong

 

It may have been me. I certainly read it when it was first published and would probably have been inclined to mention it here, but my memory is even older than yours, so I can't swear to it.

 

Anyway, the notion that all French food is idyllic is a romantic nonsense. They serve up as much bad, average, barely acceptable food as pretty much anywhere else. When It's great it's great. Often it isn't. Usually, it isn't.

I remember sitting in a Paris restaurant with an acquaintance who had never visited before. She was hopelessly rose tinted. We were eating a rather nasty, under-dressed salad which hadn't even been properly washed and she was in raptures, delighting in her "eating in Paris" trip but not actually looking at or tasting the food. The rubbery omelette that came next was "a taste of heaven".

If it makes any difference, I am half French. My French mother is possibly, probably, certainly  the worst cook I have ever met!

Sorry, Maman!

(Actually, she knows it, too.)

Edited June 3, 2016 by liuzhou (log)

[DianaB]

14 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

 

I give up, DianaB. It sounds like "topi me" is some kind of holiday I had not heard of, but Mr. Google was no help at all. What is it?

 

I enjoyed your thoughtful post, and I am sure there is another one on eG somewhere that refers to the microwave type premade meals that many in France decry but have crept into current restaurants. I seem to remember it was a very well respected media article link, and I'm off to attempt to find it.

 

Topi me is simply what you get when your iPad automatically corrects your text and you don't notice it on reading through before posting!  It should have read  'when we first started spending time in France...'!  My apologies for confusion caused and time lost chez Google!

 

I agree with much of what has been written in this thread.

 

I would never claim that McDo is a cheap option in France, certainly in my experience as I said earlier I could get a decent 3 course lunch for 10€ but not even main course plus drink for the same price at McDo.  Salaries, even in the professions in France, are incredibly low compared to the UK and people really struggle to make ends meet.  

 

As to eating out, a small amount of research will uncover numerous small restaurants in Paris and beyond where a menu based upon the home made plat du jour will be great and reasonably priced.  It seems @Orbit found this even in the very tourist oriented area of Montmartre.  Friends recently opened a restaurant in that area where the prix fixed lunch time menu is just 15€. You won't find decent food in England for that price.  Not convinced they will be in business for long, when we last spoke the place was haemorrhaging cash at an alarming rate.  Going above that price would simply encourage their clients to look elsewhere.  Despite the cost, young French people will choose McDonalds because they want to associate with the culture they think it represents.  

 

It is the middle layer of restaurants that has largely vanished in the past 20 years.  When I moved to live in France the town where I was based had some great examples but only one remains. The rest are now bistros selling cheap, if often good, identical menus.  Any variation on steak and fries you can think of.  Always a buffet for self service entrées, The one place that has kept its slightly more refined menu got its first Michelin star a year or so ago.  It is extremely expensive but it seems to have found a way to stay in business that one time competitors missed.