French cuisine

Many people of France regard their cuisine to be the best in the world. France is the origin of the Guide Michelin rating system, and ties Japan (which has twice the population) for the highest number of stars in the guidebook.

French cuisine has set a standard for fine dining around the world, and chefs and gastronomes across the Western world make extensive use of French culinary terms.

Understand

See also: Kingdom of France

French cuisine has roots back to the Roman Empire. Influenced by Italian cuisine as well as local traditions, haute cuisine was created in Paris during the Early Modern times. The French Revolution put an end to guilds and the privileged noble class, expanding fine cooking and dining to common people.

While foreign cuisines such as Mexican food, American fast food and Chinese food have been less successful in France than in other parts of Europe, they can be found in Paris and the other more cosmopolitan cities. North African, Vietnamese and Middle Eastern cuisine, and even occasionally sub-Saharan African cuisines (especially from Senegal) in areas with large African communities, are among those that have been imported from former French colonies and taken root in the former mother country. At least some North African food has been fully assimilated, as a survey in the 1990s found that couscous was the most popular French food (so described by the respondents) in France.

Conversely, French cuisine has also influenced the cuisines of its former colonial possessions, with the cuisines of Quebec and Louisiana having a strong French influence, albeit with the incorporation of many local North American flavours and ingredients, and a modified version of the French baguette has been widely adopted in Vietnam for use in the ubiquitous bánh mì sandwiches.

Meals

Breakfast (petit déjeuner) in France isn't the most important meal of the day, and is usually very light. The most typical breakfast consists of a coffee and a croissant or some other "viennoiserie", but since it implies going to the boulangerie early in the morning to buy fresh croissants, it's typically reserved for somewhat special occasions. On normal days most people have a beverage (coffee, tea, hot chocolate, orange juice) and either toast ("tartines" made of baguette or toast bread with butter and jam/honey/Nutella) that can be dipped in the hot beverage, or cereals with milk. People who eat healthy may go for fruit and yoghurt. As a general rule, the French breakfast is mostly sweet, but anything can change and you can have savoury breakfasts everywhere today.

Both lunch (déjeuner) and dinner (dîner) are traditionally full meals. They often consist of an appetiser (entrée or hors d'œuvre), a main dish (plat), and a dessert (dessert) or cheese. Restaurants usually serve dinner between 19:30 and 21:30; eating dinner before around 19:00 is considered very odd and chances are that anyone you see eating at a restaurant before this time is a tourist.

Ingredients

• Bread (pain) is the classical side order in France. The baguette, a plain wheat roll, is the archetypal bread.
• Cheese (fromage) comes in hundreds of varieties, and can be included in most dishes. It often makes up a dessert. Here is a far from exhaustive list of what one can find:
  • Bleu des Causses
  • Livarot
  • Roquefort
  • Bleu du Vercors
  • Morbier
  • Saint Nectaire
  • Boulette d'Avesnes
  • Maroilles
  • Salers
  • Brie de Meaux
  • Munster
  • Sainte Maure de Touraine
  • Brie de Melun
  • Murol
  • Selles-sur-Cher
  • Broccio
  • Neufchâtel
  • Saint Marcellin
  • Camembert
  • Ossau-Iraty
  • Sainte Maure de Touraine
  • Cantal
  • Pelardon
  • Tomme de chèvre
  • Chaource
  • Pérail
  • Tomme des Cévennes
  • Comté
  • Picodon
  • Valençay

Regional dishes

Every French region has dishes all its own. These dishes follow the resources (game, fish, agriculture, etc.) of the region, the vegetables (cabbage, turnip, endives, etc.) which they grow there. Here is a small list of regional dishes which you can find easily in France. Generally each region has a unique and widespread dish (usually because it was food for the masses), while in Alsace, the local cuisine shares many similarities with German cuisine, with a focus on simple and hearty meat-based dishes.

• Cassoulet (Southwest France) : beans, duck, pork & sausages
• Choucroutes, or sauerkraut (Alsace) : stripped fermented cabbage + pork
• Fondue Savoyarde (central Alps) : melted/hot cheese with white wine
• Fondue Bourguignonne (Burgundy) : pieces of beef (in boiled oil), usually served with a selection of various sauces.
• Raclette (central Alps) : melted cheese & potatoes/meat
• Pot-au-feu (found all over France) : boiled beef with vegetables
• Bœuf Bourguignon (Burgundy) : slow cooked beef with red wine gravy
• Gratin dauphinois (Rhône-Alpes) : oven-roasted slices of potatoes with sour cream and cheese
• Aligot (Aveyron) : melted cheese mixed with a purée of potatoes
• Bouillabaisse (fish + saffron) (Marseille and the French Riviera). Don't be fooled! A real bouillabaisse is a really expensive dish due to the amount of fresh fish it requires. Be prepared to pay at least €30 per person. If you find restaurants claiming to serve bouillabaisse for something like €15 per person, you'll find it to be of a very poor quality.
• Tartiflette (Savoie) : Melted Reblochon cheese, potatoes and pork or bacon.
• Confit de Canard (south west) : Duck Confit, consists of legs and wings bathing in grease. That grease is actually very healthy and, with red wine, is one of the identified sources of the so-called "French Paradox" (eat richly, live long).
• Foie Gras (south west) : The liver of a duck or goose. Although usually quite expensive, foie gras can be found in supermarkets for a lower price (because of their purchasing power) around the Christmas season. It is the time of year when most foie gras is consumed in France. It goes very well with Champagne.
• Moules marinières (found anywhere there's a coast): Mussels steamed in white wine, garlic and shallots, normally served with crusty bread and French fries. This combo, Belgian in origin, is also called moules-frites. There are numerous regional varieties. Add cream and sometimes lardons, then you've got moules normandes. Ditch the wine and cook in cider, and enjoy moules bretonnes. Or throw in tomatoes and herbes de Provence (savory, marjoram, rosemary, thyme, oregano) for moules à la provençale.

Fast food

Believe it or not fast food exists in France, and is often favoured by young French people on a budget. While you can certainly find examples of the major American chains, especially McDonald's (pronounced Mac Do informally) or the French chain Quick, the vast majority of fast-food establishments are in the form of the local kebab shop, not unlike those found in England. Almost all the dishes are roughly what you would expect, however a fast food shop is the least likely restaurant in which you'll find someone conversant in English.

• Tacos à la française - this particular food item demands a bit of explanation. While Mexican cuisine (or at least the international Tex-Mex variant) has become popular around Europe, it is a rare sight in France. So be aware the "tacos" that you see advertised at kebab shops in France is something else entirely, which in almost no way resembles Mexican or even Tex-Mex food, with the sole exception of the Durum wrapper, which resembles a large flour tortilla. To this is added kebab meat, fries, and one of a selection of cold mayonnaise-based sauces, and if you insist, some harissa. The whole thing is wrapped tight, like a burrito, and then flattened and seared in a hot panini press. The concoction has become hugely popular in the decade following its invention in the mid-2000s, and has expanded from its native Lyon region to the whole Francophonie, so it's probably incorrect to disparage le tacos à la française in and of itself. Linguists might be interested to know that tacos is the singular form. However you need to be aware of it if what you are looking for are real Mexican tacos, which also exist in France, but are not as widely available. Always be sure to check the sign, or ask.

Vegetarianism

Vegetarianism is not as uncommon as it used to be, especially in larger cities, and vegetarians have become far better catered for than they used to be before the 2010s. While restaurants with at least one veggie option used to be the exception, they are starting to become the rule. Meanwhile more and more cartes feature at least one vegan (végétalien) item. Nonetheless, France still remains one of the more difficult and least inspiring places to be a vegetarian, and very few restaurants offer vegetarian menus, full vegetarian restaurants are rare (they are often found at place famous for alternative culture). Thus if you ask for something vegetarian, or if you ask for the undetailed "vegetarian option" in the menu, you will certainly have the vegetable side dishes that goes with the main course(s) being put together without any particular refinement (they often come at the same price as with meat). The only things most menus have available are salads.

Your life will be made especially challenging if you don't eat cheese, which is absolutely ubiquitous in French cooking and will even often be added in foreign dishes where it shouldn't be (the most appalling and egregious example being supermarket hummus which, for reasons best known to French hummus manufacturers, usually has cottage cheese [fromage blanc] added to it). Attitudes towards vegetarianism are also not always very progressive; a temporary Covid-related decision by the local council in the city of Lyon to make school meals entirely pescetarian was met with huge backlash from farmers' unions and the French right in 2021.

In Paris, especially within the confines of the périphérique ring road that separates the centre from its suburbs, you will have no trouble at all. The 10th arrondissement in particular has a large array of speciality vegan and vegetarian restaurants. Outside Paris, the range of vegetarian food available does vary from region to region. Most regional capitals have vegetarian restaurants, but thez most touristic a place is, the less options you will get.

In Brittany, galettes (buckwheat pancakes) are a must - even if you think you don't like them from experience going to your local crêperie, you will once you've had a real one in Brittany which tends to be a much more substantial meal than any galette you've had elsewhere - and your average galette/crepe place will usually have several vegetarian options available. Although they will traditionally contain an egg, most crêperies allow you to select what you'd like to include in your galette. In Alsace, a number of regional specialities can be made vegetarian: the most common ones being Flammekueche/tarte flambée (Alsatian-style thin crust pizza) and tarte à l'oignon (onion tart), but you might also occasionally come across vegetarian Spaetzle (baked egg pasta) or Roesti (potato pancakes). In alpine regions. Elsewhere, look out for ravioles (French-style ravioli, usually baked in a cheese gratin) which are usually (but not always, check with the waiter!) vegetarian, or gratin dauphinois (baked potatoes in cream sauce). In the South-East, ratatouille can also be a safe option.

Elsewhere however, local vegetarian specialities become more scarce and less interesting. Nonetheless, even in relatively small towns you have a number of options available to you if you're willing to forgo the local cuisine. A safe option is usually the local pizzeria, where you can obviously order a margherita if all else fails, but most pizza places will also offer a peculiarly French set of toppings called chèvre-miel (honey and goat's cheese pizza). Kebab and tacos shops will very often offer either vegetarian tacos (of the French kind, not of the Tex-Mex kind you may be used to elsewhere!) or some sort of falafel wrap, although they aren't always the cleanest and most salubrious places and you shouldn't feel shy asking them to rinse or change their tongs (pinces in French) before serving you.

Beverages

France is one of the world's most prominent countries for wine (vin), and a comprehensive description of French wine would require an entire article in itself. Much beer is also drunk in France, especially the Flemish-influenced Nord region (eg. Pelforth, from Mons-en-Barœul near Lille) and German-influenced Alsace (eg. Kronenbourg, from Strasbourg). Corsican chestnut beer (Pietra) can also be found in a lot of supermarkets around France. Beers sold in French supermarkets tend to be very strong Belgian-style beers, with alcohol content usually around 6–8%.

While cider is not a staple alcoholic drink as it is in the UK, it is considered a regional delicacy in Brittany and Normandy and is often served either hot or cold in a bowl alongside crepes or galettes. In supermarkets it is usually sold in corked bottles as wine would be. It does however taste quite different to British ciders – usually you have the choice between cidre brut (hard cider), which has a somewhat unfamiliar smell and aftertaste, or cidre doux (sweet cider), which is indeed sweet, like apple juice from concentrate.

France is also known for spirits distilled from wine. Famous drinks referred to as "brandy" by English-speakers include cognac and armagnac. France is also famed for its production of other distilled spirits such as calvados from apples and poire williams from pears, and for its almost limitless varieties of liqueurs. These drinks are collectively known in French as eaux-de-vie, literally "waters of life", but more commonly translated as spirits or liquors. The most well-known might be pastis, an aniseed-based spirit closely associated with the region around Marseille, or Chartreuse, a very strong herbal liqueur (usually around 60% ABV) from the mountains near Grenoble. In ski resorts you will commonly find Chartreuse served in hot chocolate to make a cocktail called green chaud.

Coffee (café) is drunk at the end of a meal, occasionally with liquor. Excellent hot cocoa is also available, made from dark chocolate, and tea and herbal teas (called tisanes) are also often drunk. Linden (tilleul), verbena (vervain) and mint (menthe) are among the more popular herbal teas. In supermarkets you may also find chicory coffee (chicorée) being sold, a result of WW2-era rationing that permanently caught on and is commonly associated with the (post-)industrial Nord region.

Sweets

France is perhaps best known for the nougat, a type of confectionary made of eggs, sugar, and nuts, similar to Spanish turrón or Italian torrone. The city of Montélimar in the southeast of France is a well-known place for this.

See also

• Italian cuisine