Dernier article (en date) paru dans le Scottish Independent

The French and Their Food

This time my Scottish friends, we’ll have a look at something the French really do take seriously: la cuisine. Eating. Gastronomy. Or, in a more colloquial vocabulary, la bouffe.
Because we have a reputation to keep: food, wine and love: that’s what we’re supposed to be good
at.
We’ve already seen that regarding love, French men are largely overrated (and I’m not talking
sizes).
But French cuisine may hopefully turn out to be less disappointing. First, you must know that
though we’re obviously very proud of our famous Chefs (Bocuse, Troisgros, Robuchon, Ducasse
and many others), most of us simply can’t afford a meal in one of their restaurants. Or only on very special occasions.
But. We love to eat. It’s one of our favourite occupations. At breakfast we’re thinking of what we’re going to have for lunch. Then we worry about what we’ll eat for dinner. And I mustn’t forget the lovely goûter many of us have around 4.00 pm, like when we used to be kids back from school.
Oh boy, life is hard here believe me.
The French actually cook their meals. On a daily basis, we do la cuisine. In many British or
American books or films, people, at least in big cities, think they’re having dinner at home when
they’re in fact ordering from a takeaway restaurant. That’s not something we easily do, except
occasionally for pizzas. Maybe too because culturally, apart from sandwiches and snacks, take
away food isn’t a solution. We’d rather grill a steak at 11p.m then call for a delivery. By the way,
Doggy Bags are also an unclear concept to us. These last few years, a lot of restaurants have made great efforts to encourage us going back home with the leftovers of our meals, but we don’t feel comfortable with it. Could it be that we’re snobbish? Or just stupid…
Food trucks are quite a recent trend here in France, but don’t expect to get some cheap snack like hotdog or kebab there. No. Our food trucks are conceptual, you see, which means the food has to be fancy and expensive, even cooked in a truck. You won’t manage to get a basic burger, for instance. Rather a foie gras burger topped with fig jam that will cost you an arm. But that you’ll still end up eating standing out in the cold.
By the way, I’ve recently heard of a restaurant in Deauville (posh seaside resort in Normandy also nicknamed “Paris-plage”) making special caviar pizzas. A small one (only crust with a teaspoon of fish eggs on it) will cost you 70 Euros.
Anyway. A proper “at home” French meal is maison, which implies thinking a bit of what we feel
like eating (easy, as seen above we do it all the time), going shopping, then putting on an apron
and… cook.
Supermarkets are convenient but so mainstream (yuk). Street markets are the place to be. Hipsters and bohos, as well as the regular housewives, prefer to shop there. Where you can buy fresh products directly from the producers and have a lovely casual chit chat (see, we’re not that snobbish, after all) with them. It’s more expensive, especially with the boom in organic food, but when the well being of your stomach is at stake, money is not a problem.
Oh wait a minute. As for the essential item to a real meal, namely bread (baguette!) nothing
compares to the bakery. Where are also baked our famous croissants (though croissants and other viennoiseries rather come from, well, Vienna, Austria). Same for the French fries, which for us are typically Belgian.
Regarding food habits, France is far less complicated than many other countries: allergies,
vegetarian and vegan diets are not big issues. We’re mainly a carnivorous people, and it’s a good news because traditional French cuisine often involves meat: stews like pot-au-feu (vegetables long cooked with some beef meat), blanquette (veal meat, mushrooms and carrots in white wine sauce), boeuf bourguignon (beef and carrots in red wine sauce), cassoulet (baked beans, pork and sausages); grilled or roasted meats like entrecôte, côte de boeuf, lamb gigot; poultry; charcuterie (pork products) etc.
But this doesn’t mean any French person is able or willing to cook a full six courses elaborated
meal, especially in an average size and nonfunctional kitchen.
Cans of all sizes can be found in every French pantry and most of the time we rely on opening
them, boiling pasta or cooking eggs in any form. Microwave ovens are also very useful, like anywhere else, to heat up lasagna, breaded fish or any food kept in the freezer.
We although go as far as making our quiches, ratatouilles and desserts. Though we’ve got very fine bakeries and pâtisseries (you must have heard of macarons by Ladurée or fairy tales cakes by Pierre Hermé), we like to bake our pies, tarts, canelés (a delicious specialty of Bordeaux), and chocolate mousse or crème anglaise are often au menu. Of course crêpes are a classic, and we make some as often as possible. Any occasion is good for a crêpe party. With cider, if in Brittany.
And since we can rarely indulge ourselves a treat to a five stars restaurant, we watch cuisine on TV.
The French version of your Gordon Ramsay is Philippe Etchebest, ex professional rugby player now Chef at a hostelry in Saint-Emilion, near Bordeaux.
And ohlala, the show itself is a real nightmare.
First Etchebest goes to a restaurant, incognito (except for the whole TV crew filming him). He
orders the regular menu, looks on the verge of throwing up and mumbles something like “looks like shit, smells like shit, tastes like shit. It’s shit”.Then he introduces himself (surprise!) and asks to visit the premises. Naturally the kitchen is just hellish. You wouldn’t let a rat live in it. Anyway they already own the place. The Chef finds goods that could be carbon- 14 dated, long forgotten dirty
frying pans lying on the floor, and everything is so repulsive that you’d rather burn the place down than try to clean it. To top it all, the staff looks like a bunch of hobos. Etchebest yells things like “you wankers, listen to me!” (Philippe is kind of a direct individual you see) “you’re good for
nothing. You’d better put a crapper in your kitchen, considering what you dare serving customers. Shame on you.” The parts I like best is when he’s so mad he tosses things on the floor in slow motion, along with thunderbolts and a frightening music. Then he gives his instructions (“stop scratching your crotch and picking your nose in front of guests and start working” – pretty basic) and miracle, the next time he comes the place is squeaky clean and the food excellent.
Another very popular cuisine show is Top Chef. It’s a contest, like in any other country where it’s
broadcast, but hey, it’s France here people, don’t forget. So the tests are often pretentious and
almost exclusively related to French cuisine. French Chefs are very flagwaving and their boldness only goes as far as reinventing traditional (French) dishes. How daring. But tell me, if you feel like having a good tournedos Rossini, do you really expect to get a huge plate with a tiny cube of meat on one side, a dice of foie gras on the other and a drop of sauce in the middle? I don’t think so.
Molecular cuisine never took off here, maybe there’s a reason for it.
To be honest I should say that most of us stick to French cuisine. Strangely enough, couscous is the French favourite meal, right. But apart from that and a few incursions in Chinese or Japanese
food, we’re not an adventurous people when foreign food is involved. Too bad.

So, time to come down here and open Scottish restaurants!

J'espère que vous avez enjoyé, mes crumbles au vinaigre. Désormais, j'ai une chef de rubrique (je suis souvent dans "Arts & Entertainment), la possibilité de choisir moi-même mes photos d'illustration et le SI devrait paraître sur papier en septembre. Déjà en ligne (www.thescottishindependent.com) "Excuse My French" sur les expressions françaises relatives à...la cuisine. et bientôt une petite bio de me, myself and I.

I heart you babes! Speak soon!