Monday 20 March 2023

What is French Cuisine?

Recently a client asked me what French cuisine was. We'd just observed that there are Italian restaurants everywhere in the Western World. Despite the reputation of French cuisine as being the height of perfection (that's how the UNESCO World Intangible Heritage listing describes it), French cuisine is not so universally available or loved at a grassroots level.

Picnic, France. Photo by Loire Valley Time Travel.
A picnic in the garden of friends.

I didn't really have a good answer for my client apart from talking about Escoffier and sauces but it set me thinking and I posted the question on Facebook in an English language group of keen domestic cooks who enjoy French food. Many of the answers waffled about food prepared with love and passion, without giving any real indication of what exactly was being concocted for the table. In fairness to those who responded in this fashion, I had specified that just giving me a list of classic French dishes would not cut it. 

Organic bread at a market, Indre et Loire, France. Photo by Loire Valley Time Travel.
Organic artisanal bread at our local market.

To my considerable surprise, not a single person mentioned the French concept of terroir! And a lot of people appear to be convinced that all French food contains vast quantities of butter!

Cured salmon at a market, Indre et Loire, France. Photo by Loire Valley Time Travel.
Cured salmon at our local market.

My observation is that France sits in a unique location, the only truly central western European nation, and this has influenced its food heritage (and indeed, made it quite multifaceted). France has a northern European face and a southern European face, and lots of regions. On the ground in France regional cuisine is more important than national a lot of the time.  

Homemade tartiflette. Photo by Loire Valley Time Travel.
Homemade tartiflette.

In the north the flavours and colours are subtle, muted, often sophisticated and complex. This is the France of butter, cream, soft cheeses, white asparagus, endives or cabbages and delicate seasonings (thyme is about as strong as it gets and garlic is used judiciously). Here in the Touraine Loire Valley we are mostly influenced by this northern tradition.

Charcutier, Indre et Loire, France. Photo by Loire Valley Time Travel.
The window of the charcutier in our village.

In the south the flavours are more robust and the colours more vibrant. Peppers, tomatoes and aubergines feature, as well as olive oil, stone fruits and citrus. Seasonings have more zing and can include piment d'Espelette (a type of mild chilli) and basil. 

Organic vegetable farm shop, Indre et Loire, France. Photo by Loire Valley Time Travel.
A farm shop selling organic vegetables on the edge of our village. The man on the left is a Michelin starred chef.

As well as the bourgeoise tradition of haute cuisine developed by Escoffier and the famous restaurant rating system of Michelin stars, there is a nation wide tradition of simple nourishing unpretentious regional peasant food too. Root vegetables (carrots, turnips and celeriac) and pulses (lentils and white beans) are remarkably popular, and pork is everywhere. But likewise, almost every French village has a patissier, making ornate tarts and complex multilayered slices. 

Another universal element of French cuisine is beautiful presentation. The French understand that food should delight the eye as well as the tastebuds. This concern for aesthetics applies to the table setting as well, so that a mood is set for enjoying the meal before it even appears in front of the diner.

Homemade apricot clafoutis. Photo by Loire Valley Time Travel.
Homemade apricot clafoutis.

Salads, or more precisely, salades composées, are one of the unsung heroes of French cuisine. The most well known to anglophones is salade nicoise, but you can get delicious and satisfying salads all over France. Lettuce is not a garnish here, it is meant to be eaten, and tomatoes are something you look forward to in the late summer when they are ripe and full of flavour. Out of season tomatoes are not consumed much by most people, although these days they are available.

French wine. Photo by Loire Valley Time Travel.
Wine, delivered to our house by our local Michelin starred sommelier.

Terroir is the idea that food is a product of its environment, which includes everything from the soil to the generations of farmers, the seasons and the traditions of processing. All French people understand the concept of terroir and buy into it -- for French food at any rate. It doesn't stop the occasional cultural appropriation, such as French produced so called wagu beef or an Indication Géographique Protegée for kiwi fruits grown in the Pays-Basque and les Landes.

French cuisine frequently uses the 'what grows together goes together' principle too. That is to say, for example, Sainte Maure de Touraine goats cheese goes with walnuts and the light fruity red wines of the Loire Valley.

Charantais Melon, Indre et Loire, France. Photo by Loire Valley Time Travel.
Charentais melon, a seasonal locally grown treat. Very few people would bother with melon grown further south and on sale earlier.

Ingredients matter -- where they came from, how they were grown, as well as seasonality and regionality.  Farm to fork and nose to tail are not newfangled trendy concepts here. Nor is short food supply chains. People practice these ideas as a matter of course, just like their parents and grand parents did.

Butcher shop interior, Indre et Loire, France. Photo by Loire Valley Time Travel.
Our village butcher shop.

Lunch is the main meal of the day, and bread is by far the most important carbohydrate, consumed at every meal. There is a very positive relationship with food and eating is associated with conviviality and what makes life worth living. Everyone loves to talk about food and there is pride in the local produce.

A large part of the reason that it seems so difficult to pin down exactly what French food is comes from the fact that all anglophone cuisines have been very heavily influenced by the French style of cooking, although sadly they have not always inherited the sheer joy in eating and cooking that the French demonstrate.

Galette queens, Indre et Loire, France. Photo by Loire Valley Time Travel.
Two young American medical students enjoy the tradition of being crowned if your piece of galette des rois contains the token. This is a local workers restaurant.

So what is French cuisine to you and what is your experience of French cuisine?

4 comments:

Le Pré de la Forge said...

To answer your question....
"In the north the flavours and colours are subtle, muted, often sophisticated and complex." To me..... over rich and bland!!

"In the south the flavours are more robust and the colours more vibrant." To me.... full of colour, intense flavours, less rich and more vegetable oriented! But, I can't taste piment d'Espelette unless it is in large quantities....

Terroir rules.... and also "there is a nation wide tradition of simple nourishing unpretentious regional peasant food too"! And those dishes I love.... much like almost all UK "home cooking".... many are pure comfort food.

"The French understand that food should delight the eye as well as the tastebuds" Which I think is one of the reasons many people take photographs of their platters, worldwide.... and for presentation you only have to look at Le Promenade in Petit Pressigny, L'assiette Creuse in Descartes and Arbore & Sens in Loches.... in all three the meal is not just beautifully presented, the whole meal is theatre!! I only have to look at one of my pictures taken in any of those three to eat the meal again... in a virtual sense.

"Salads, or more precisely, salades composées, are one of the unsung heroes of French cuisine." French salads are wonderful... even Henri doesn't cock these up!! His starter "Salade aux gessiers" is one of my favourites.... in fact your comment "nose to tail" and the French use of Abats/Offal is great, too.... andouilette is just chitterlings in a tube {or in one case is the entire intestine passed back and forth through itself, so that a slice across resembles rubber bands}... the liver and kidneys over here are always very nice... the fact that in high "duck" season, carcasses are sold for soup... and a rissotto [there is always a huge amount of meat on those carcasses] is something I love [and so do others, because when you get to the supermarket a day late.... they've gone!]

And you haven't really touched on wine and the use of wine in cooking and with food which, like Belgian beer and its inclusion in Belgian cooking, is also part of wonderful French recipes... although Henri's "Zander in Bordeaux" was an abject disaster! If he'd used rosé or white Bordeaux I think it could have worked.... but red.... no. not for me!!
A lovely, and very complex blog....

You will notice I avoided mention of "But likewise, almost every French village has a patissier, making ornate tarts and complex multilayered slices." They are too dangerous!!

potty said...

That was very interesting and thank you for taking the trouble to write it and for L P D l F to give a generous reply. I wish I could add to it but fear that my/our experience rather fears that the age of regionality is coming to an end with the new generation of 'cooks'. However, here in the UK there are many young cooks who celebrate their local produce but otherwise it's pretty samey.

Carolyn said...

This is a topic near and dear to us. We think a lot about food and a good part of our travels in France revolve around which restaurant, where, is open on which day.

Even small restaurants cook to a high standard. We rarely have a disappointing dish. What impresses us most is how good the fish is, always.

In France we can afford restaurants that cook at a high level, which is not the case at home.

Susan said...

Carolyn: seems like a perfectly sensible way of travelling.

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