French & American menus

[Bux]

The use of certain terms is always going to be confusing when they appear in a discussion about both French and American restaurants. Entrée is an appropriate place to start. A french dictionary defines the word as entry or entrance and notes that its meaning in terms of cuisine is "first course," yet here in the U.S., "entree" commonly implies the main course so strongly that French chefs who have worked in the U.S. for any time use it to denote the main course of a meal. I suspect that usage is due to the fact that a formal French meal will start well before the first or entry course. There are, of course, the hors d'oeuvres, or those things that are "out of the works," and not part of the actual meal. Nowadays we have tidbits to amuse the mouth or taste buds, possibly before the hors d'oeuvres. Also the fish course which may serve as the entrée to the meal, may be as large and filling as the meat course and Americans were used to smaller appetizers and huge main courses. Anyway it can lead to some confusion if you're not aware of the difference.

"Menu," combined with "a la carte" is even more interesting. Here in the states, we order a la carte from the menu. In France, one orders à la carte from the carte or the carte du jour. Le menu is a set meal with set price, although a choice of dishes may be offered for some courses. Although the menus offered may be a good buy, the intent, as often as not, is to provide a chef's selection of courses. Frequently a French restaurant will offer several or many, menus they may differ in nature (seasonal, seafood, vegetarian, etc.) or in price or the number of courses offered. The last two are generally related. The ultimate menu for some gastronomes, in the finest restaurants is often the menu gastronomic. This menu has developed in the hands of the most creative chefs into a style of dining unique unto itself in some ways and not all diners like this style. The individual courses are generally small but numerous.

I trust this is of some interest to those going to France for the first time, and of course, subject to correction and additional point.

[Fat Guy]

The confusion escalates when waiters in France attempt to accommodate American usage. I went back and forth on this with the a couple of maitre d's on my last trip to France, in particular with regard to use of the term "menu." I remember one in Paris saying, "You want the menu or you want the menu?"

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Shucks.  I thought this was going to be a discussion on the differences between the menu in French and the translated version they sometimes offer English speaking diners.  On those occasions that we are given English menus, I always exchange at least on of them for the original so that we can tell what they are serving that night.  The English versions are always good, however, for a few chuckles re the problems of language.

[Bux]

That has always been an entertaining and amusing subject. If you happen to remember a few charming translations offhand, please start a new topic.

[Scottf]

As an addition to this thread of menu translation, is anyone aware of a website or guidebook or whatever that would help to translate a menu in French.  Or is it a case of experience, learning to decipher keywords etc.

I've seen the odd food dictionary but  the French words for milk and bread aren't quite what I'm looking for!  

How I wish I'd now taken my French studies seriously at school.  I think my "Del Boy" take on French is going to bring some amusement to the Parisien restauranteurs!  !  Problem is at 15 I never for 1 minute expected to grow up wishing to visit France on a gastronomic adventure.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Scott, the glossary in the back of Patricia Well's Food Lover's Guide to Paris, which you should read anyway, has one of the most comprehensive lists I have seen.  If you can't figure out a menu from this guide, you will need the help of the waiter anyway.  

[SamanthaF]

Thanks Margaret, I'm going to go home via Borders tonight!

[macrosan]

I know it's not French, but on the subject of translation of dishes on a menu, the following at an "Italian" restaurant in Central London is my all-time favorite.

"Escaloppa a piacere" was translated as "Veal fried in breadcrumbs with spaghetti" :)

[Bux]

Scottf, I'm not sure if we're better off or not, but from the time of Escoffier until at least the late sixties, there was a roster of garnishes and preparations that all had classic names. We all knew lyonnaise meant with onions or florentine with spinach but the real gourmands knew the ones that signified coxcombs and truffles and that ilk. Most of that has died off with nouvelle cuisine, but when I first came to haute cuisine, I assumed I would have to learn most of them to achieve gastronomic literacy. It's all creative now and even a Frenchman might not recognize the herb a Veyrat or Bras list as garnishes. I brought back a menu from Pierre Gagnaire and a French kitchen staff here in NY, couldn't translate some of the ingredients listed.

[robert brown]

What about my favorite expression for the main course, 'plat du resistance"? Irresistable.

(Edited by robert brown at 4:53 pm on Jan. 8, 2002)

[Malawry]

I'm an American who has never visited France, though I am sure I will at some point over the next few years. Meanwhile, I'm interested in finding some kind of food-related French-English dictionary. The ideal book would include a comprehensive pronunciation guide (my lack of understanding here is an endless source of humor) and a guide to the cultural experience of eating in France (including the whole menu/a la carte discussion above). Perhaps I need several books to cover these issues. I'd rather not get the dumbed-down treatment whenever I do make it out there, and learning some of the language makes it more likely that I'll be ready when I have the funds and the time.

[Rachel Perlow]

re: Malawry's post above... Me too! (only we're going this fall so I need a reading list soon).

Thanks! Rachel

[Margaret Pilgrim]

The most comprehensive translator I know is Dictionnaire Gastronomique Français/Anglais published by La Maison du Dictionnaire Hippocrene Books, Inc. (tel: 212.685.4371; fax: 212.779.9338)  ISBN: 0-7818-0555-4   500 pages of fine print and a lot of detail: 7 pages on treatments for oeufs, 10 on sauce.  It doesn't give pronunciation, and is French to English only.  I can't remember where I got mine, but have a hazy recollection that it might have been Jessica's Biscuit, on the net or by 800 number.

[Bux]

Malawry, and you too Rachael,  

I think the American love/hate relationship with France is almost as great as that of England. The number of Americans who have not been to France, but think or dream about going is legion. Many do go and many of those love it or hate, but not enough bother to prepare for the cultural differences. On the other hand, there are a few that over prepare and end up intimidating themselves.

Margaret mentioned Patricia Wells' The Food Lover's Guide to Paris. It's an excellent source not only of addresses and vocabularly, but of insight into the culture, attitudes and ambience. When you do go, you will want the latest edition as things change quickly these days in terms of hot restaurants and shops, but any edition will serve as an abstract learning tool. It's companion The Food Lover's Guide to France has not been revised in too long a time and thus it's been obsolete in terms of addresses and places, but it's still a good commentary on the food of the various provinces.

Maybe I feel too great a need for people to start where I did and maybe France and the world have changed to make some of this irrelevant, but I suspect you will enjoy a couple of sources, even if they are dated. I hope you find them relevant. In the sixties, I traveled with Waverly Root's The Food of France as my major guide not only to the food, but to the culture and history of the country. The homogenization of France may make it harder to find the old regional specialties, but traces of the tradtions he describes are clearly in evidence. Root was an American journalist in Paris, as was AJ Liebling. The two were contemproraries and I'd also recommend Liebling's Between Meals, An Appetite for Paris. It documents a bygone era, but I think this is the era from which our current attitude towards France dates. The interest of Jefferson and Franklin was no longer part of the American psyche by the 20th century, but I see a continuous thread starting with the end of the first World War.

I've read Liebling more recently and was startled to read mention of a restaurant in which he and Root both ate that was recommmended to me by older and more sophisticated college friends when I first went to Paris. I was touched to learn that my tastes for French food were also formed at a restaurant they credit with forming their tastes generations ago. I'd offer the name as it's still in buisness, but sometime in the seventies or eighties it took a serious nosedive and no longer serves up traditional and honest French food.

Two journalists reporting on contemporary food and wine in France and whose articles are well worth reading when they appear in the NY Times are Jacqueline Friedrich and Dorie Greenspan. Dorie has posted a few messages here on the France board. The France board, by the way, is an excellent place to get informed. The topics are quite varied and as with many enthusiastic threads on eGullet.com real nuggets of not quite on-topic information are buried in many threads. I'm sure others will have lots to add.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

While Root and Liebling are the proper introduction to French cultural matters, if you are leaving in a matter of a couple of months, I would suggest that, in addition to them, you add a pragmatic approach: read Polly Platt's French or Foe. Cutting to the chase, she will instruct you on how to act and react in order to get along with and come home in love with the French.

[Steve Klc]

I'd also like to recommend "The French" by Theodore Zeldin, written in 1982.  The short chapter on "How to eat properly" rings the truest for me.  The book is also quite funny and introspective.

[Steve Plotnicki]

You guys have mentioned all of the great books. But you have left out Blue Trout and Black Truffles by Joseph Wechsberg written in 1948. Wechsberg and Liebling are probably the two greatest food prose writers of the 20th century. What makes their books so great is that you can almost smell Paris from the way they write. Liebling about his favorite left bank bistro. And Wechsberg's recounting of being a student and living in a Pigalle flat in a building full of prostitutes is almost like being there. Adam Gopnik is their successor. At least in terms of touch and feel to the writing. But his writings were not predominately about food. Although his New Yorker piece in 1995 about restaurants in Paris is a classic.

Root's books are a little different. What Root did was to codify the French gastronomic experience. I think Richard Olney is sort of similar from a cooks perspective, but not as exhaustive. And I think Patricia Wells is their logical successor. What has made her so great is that she sort of combined those two, and was able to tell the story of  French life through a funny combination of restaurant reviews, food shops including open-air markets, recipes and any other gastronomic anecdote or curio that a region might offer. For those who see things through a pair of eyes in their stomachs (that would be me :), she showed us the way, not only in Paris, but in all of France.

What all of those writers have in common, no matter which angle they approach their subject from, is that you are left with a distinct picture of what French life is about. And what I find to be the best thing about France, is that it is about more than eating delicious food, the food is keyed into a way of life. For those who understand it, and can appreciate it, it is quite a comforting experience.

[robert brown]

The difference between Patricia Wells and the other people you mentioned is that they can write and she can't. Her restaurant reviews are written as though she has blinders on and her taste is questionable as well. I also do not like that she forms economic links with people like Robuchon. All she has done is a lot of road work. True, she does write better than Faith Heller Willinger, but that is not saying a lot as she can not write at all. But as I wrote elsewhere on the site a few weeks ago, her recommendations are terrific; but maybe that's saying as much about Italy as anything else.

It slipped my mind, but who was the blind American food writer who wrote about France? He wrote a terrific book about two sisters who had a little restaurant in, I believe, the Savoie. Do you know that one, Steve? Or anyone else?  Okay, it's "The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth" by Roy Andries deGroot. I just found it on Amazon.

Steve, if you want the penultimate book about French gastronomy, try to find "La Guide Gourmande de la France", Gault and Millau's first project, I believe. (circa 1970) I would lend you mine if you don't have it, but I would never get it  back!!!

[Steve Plotnicki]

Robert - You have foisted a burden on Patricia Wells (and Faith Heller Willinger too) that she hasn't personally taken on. Nowhere does she pass heself off as a writer of food prose. And even her food reviews need not stand up to the test of good writing (not taking sides as to whether she does or doesn't.) But what she did accomplish, and should be given much credit for, is to organize the French culinary experience for people who like good food. Faith has sort of done the same for Northern Italian food, although her efforts are somewhat hampered by Italian cuisine not being as interesting as French food is (now there's a statement that is bound to start a bunch of arguments.) But over the years, I rely on the Wells books less and less because I have found that my own personal knowledge of eating in France far exceeds the person her books are directed at. But her IHT columns are still terrific. And if you want to know about new places like Helene Darroze or L'Astrance, she's the best source I know of. And reliable too in terms of palate.

As for her commercial connections to chefs like Robuchon, it never bothered me. First of all, Robuchon was already considered the world's greatest chef at the time she began working with him. Secondly, for whatever diminution in her ability to criticize him the relationship caused, that was more than offset by the upside of Robuchon being able to work with someone with her communicative skills, to bring his genius to more people. Sometimes commerce and art do match up well. As for your Gault Millau book, you can save yours because I have a copy. But while it does a great job at the high end, Wells did the best job at the local end of French eating. At the time the Food Lover's Guide to France was released. it was easy to write about Verge and Outhier, but unusual to write about Tetou and La Tupina in Bordeaux. Her book allowed you to eat at every level place, from wine bar to 3 star restaurant and it was all organized into one coherent chapter. Formidable as they say.

[Bux]

I've found Patricia Wells' food sources to be useful destinations over the years. At the moment they're just not up to date. Whether or not they were ever the best possible sources, I couldn't say. The guide to France was valuable just for the list of market days in each area. At one time I found her reviews infallible. That's not the case today. Whether it's a due to my experience or that our tastes have parted, I don't know, but I also question her recommendations too often these days. I have no problem with her allying herself with Robuchon any more than I have a problem with other food writers and journalists openly allying themselves commercially with other talents in the industry.

I agree about Gopnik, but more for the culture (small "c") than the food. I enjoyed most of his Paris to the Moon. Was his 1955 New Yorker piece the one that started with the Passard tomato by any chance? It was an article that gripped me until I came to the part where he quoted Hoffman (Savoy, NYC) on Pacaud's use of curry. Everything unraveled for me. The same thing happened when I reread that part in the book. I put down the book I was voraciously reading and couldn't pick it up again seriously. I finally finished it by ignoring the chapter and skipping around until I had finihsed readying everything else. Hoffman is entitled to his opinon, but I couldn't figure out what led Gopnik to quote it.

Another recent book that's lighter weight and didn't grab me as fast nor as hard as Gopnik's, but was still a fascinating look at the French and their attitude towards their food, is Mort Rosenblum's A Goose in Toulouse.

And what I find to be the best thing about France, is that it is about more than eating delicious food, the food is keyed into a way of life.

This is critical and it appeared to be timeless when I first went to France. It's why I was able to regard The Food of France as my central guide book. Today this way of life appears to be fading. The proliferation of McDonalds is the surest sign, and it's a symptom not the cause of this. What's fascinating about Rosenblum's book is that each chapter contridicts the previous one. Alternately, you're convinced it's all over and that it will never change.

[robert brown]

Steve, you invoked Patricia Wells in the preceeding context of literary genius ( or near-genius) by mentioning Liebling, Gopnick, and Olney; and in the context of rigor by mentioning Waverly Root. I don't think Patricia Wells is rigorous or, as previously mentioned, a good writer. But as I said, she did the field work, but so did Henri Gault and Christian Millau. (And is the book you say you have "Dining in France" or "Le Guide Gourmand de la France". You seem to be inferring the former by referring to "the high end".  Guide Gourmand is about what grows where, what dishes and product are from what place,etc. arranged in the same way as the Blue Guides.)The work Wells did had already been done, but you are right in that popularized it for Anglo-Saxons. Also, what about Samuel Chamberlin? I have his book on France he did for Gourmet Magazine in the 1950s? I'll look at it tonight and put it in context. As for her collaboration with Robuchon, did you ever see her pan any chef that came out of his restaurant? The stuff she does has a short shelf life. The books that Waverly Root, Roy DeGroot, Liebling,etc. do will be around a lot longer than Patricia Wells's work.

[Bux]

I think the point of many of Patricia Wells' books and articles was to have short shelf life. Restaurant reviews and guides to sources that are always in a state of flux will have a short life. Do you think her own cookbooks are bound for shorter lives than other peoples and would you say that about her books on Robuchon's cooking?

[robert brown]

Bux, I have nothing against short shelf life. It's what keeps every guidebook and food/travel magazine and their personnel earning their keep. I just don't consider Patricia Wells in the Pantheon of gastronomy writers, which is what Steve started off talking about and the context that he initially established. I view her as the husband of the long-time managing editor of the International Herald Tribune above everything else. I would like to think that there are lots of people who post on eGullet that for some reason or another have more "gourmandness" than she does. Her reviews do not instill any excitement or anticipation in me; they do not convey the nature of the particular experience. Her reviews are workman-like, yeoman's service, and so forth. I know that a lot of ex-pats and Francophiles think she is special, but I think a lot of it is a matter of lack of an alternative; i.e some others whose job it is to cover the food scene in France and in English on a regular, continuous basis. Now maybe her relatively recent foray into recipe books is another story, but I direct my thoughts to her reviews and guides.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Robert-When I first mentioned Wells, the point wasn't to say she wrote as well as Liebling or Wechsberg but to point out that she had as big an impact as they had. In fact even bigger. You have to think of her like Parker. She organized the regions of France for Anglos.

Bux-Yes I am discussing that article. In fact I have discussed the curry quote with Peter Hoffman himself. Peter was pretty thrilled with it. I remember him telling me that he is often interviewed and usually the writer doesn't get the exact gist of the point he is trying to make. But Gopnik (who was a long term customer of his before he moved to Paris,) captured the essence of his point perfectly. And I don't know why that quote bothers you. The point of Pacaud sprinkling curry powder on the dish is to show that the types of ingredients that restaurants needed to use to keep their cuisine current, were poor ingredients to apply French cooking technique to.

[Bux]

I supposed the main reason I found the quote annoying is that it really read as disrespectful. Moreover, I had that dish and found it well composed, refined and delicious. Not the most exciting dish I've had a major restaurant, but that's even more to the point. He used "curry" as it has been used in western kitchens for what I expect is the better part of the century. I've had American shrimp curry at least forty years ago and run into French use of curry on and off for almost as long. It's just an accepted part of the western flavor palette. Hoffman came off as weird and pretentious in my mind, by making it an issue and by attempting to criticize Pacaud for not understanding the mystique which I find needn't exist. If Hoffman's own menus were not so eclectic and if Hoffman had Pacaud's training I might have found his comments less offensive.

To state that restaurants needed to use curry to keep their cuisine current, and that it was a poor ingredient to apply French cooking technique to, is to ignore it's long usage. Julia Child had two recipes for curry sauces in her first Mastering the art of French Cooking. I see Elizabeth David noted in 1960 that curry crops up in unexpected places in French cookery. I find recipes using curry all over the place in old men's recipes in the sixties. Raymond Oliver has 8 in his La Cuisine © 1967. Louis Diat's French cookbook for Gourmet published in the early sixties lists 6 curry dishes. It's disingenuous to suggest there is anything "current" about curry in the 90s or that it's even foreign.

I take no offense from your take on this. Perhaps you can ultimately give me a better understanding. In fact I enjoy the opportunity to discuss this in public. I may well be the odd man, but I'm happy to stand on the side of Pacaud in the meantime, although l'Ambroisie is far from my favorite restaurant.