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French Cuisine is really not all that great!

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I know this may be shocking to any French people out there but in my experience after living here four years, the food is mundane and the variety is pathetic!!!

England (yes, really) knocks the socks off France for delicious - though unhealthy - fried foods, baked foods, curries, and general embracing of various world cuisines.

Holland too, while half of its own "cuisine" consists of mashed vegetables and milky desserts, has a flourishing fast-food industry and wide variety of cooking styles available in restaurants and supermarkets.

Then we have food-mad Singapore and Malaysia - both overrun by thousands of food stalls and outlets that sell a wide variety of South-East Asian, Chinese, Malaysian, Indian, Japanese, as well as western (American, French, Italian, etc.) all day, every day, on every street corner, for next to nothing.


Compare that with France, where you get the same five dishes in every French restaurant - which you can only visit in restricted hours. There's never any innovation or experimentation in cooking styles. They've hardly heard of real Chinese, Mexican, Indian, Greek, etc. etc. The only food you can get outside lunch and dinnertime is a burger or one of the same five standard types of sandwich from the millions of sandwich outlets. The only other fast-food (and even then only during lunch or evening) is pizza, kebab or Vietnamese fried rolls.

And it's only just starting to become possible for us to get ingredients to do anything more adventurous ourselves - mostly because we've had to look around a lot and eventually discovered where you can get anything even slightly out of the ordinary.

Honestly, France has proven to be the worst place I've ever been when it comes to getting any variety of food or getting anything ready-to-eat outside lunch/dinner hours. French cuisine is VASTLY overrated!

http://www.expatica.com/fr/articles/news/Slow-Food-guru-rubbishes-French-cuisine_s-heritage-bid.html


(Reposted and slightly modified from a comment on the World's Longest Blog...)

Jukebox JuryThe robots are coming!!!

Comments

MossMan Wednesday, February 27, 2008 4:57:21 PM

Oh yeah, and don't get me started on trying to be a vegetarian here... irked

MossMan Wednesday, February 27, 2008 5:03:55 PM

Just to be clear - it's usually pretty good... but nothing special, and it's all the bloody same - and only from 12:00-14:00 or 19:30-21:30.

crashWorld hunter Wednesday, February 27, 2008 6:15:32 PM

Must..have..tasty..fatty..bacon grease...covered foods....yum!!!burp. lol

MossMan Thursday, February 28, 2008 5:55:28 AM

Yum!

P*nutP*Nut Thursday, February 28, 2008 7:28:52 AM

I remember that the supermarket we went to in Toulouse had an "English food" section so I presume it had sections for other cultures, so presumably they do sell "foreign" food in the supermarket, but this doesn't seem to get transferred over to their restaraunt culture in the same way as it has in Britain.

I have to admit I've never been a fan of french food, mainly based on a prejudice built up from a couple of crap french restaraunts I went to when I was about ten. Tomatoey gloop is my memory.

However Eurodisney, that doyen of French cuisine, did introduce me to Tartiflette at Christmas. Mmmm... the memories. Which Wikipedia reveals is French!

So French cuisine isn't all bad wink

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartiflette

MossMan Friday, February 29, 2008 9:53:24 AM

P*nutP*Nut Friday, February 29, 2008 10:35:08 AM

It was the final of Masterchef yesterday (completely new format and people since the Llyod Grossman days) and as part of it the three finalists were sent to France to fine dining maestros.

One of them, The Bras, signature dish appeared to be a plate full of flowers from the garden outside.

Another whose name I forgot served up a starter that appeared to be a posh bizarre mushrooms on toast.

And a three course meal at these places would set you back about £500!

Linhellownurse Friday, February 29, 2008 11:17:32 AM

Tartiflette! It's actually a "cuisine" made up/created for the sick of advertising "Roblochon" cheese. LOL It's invented in the 1980s. I've eatten this Tartiflette made by my friends, which is really nice! It's a kind of student food, and it's a French student party food. Easy to make and taste fabulous!

Haha, make sure no French see your blog, otherwise, you will get assassinated... Beware the next time you get any French food! The French food police has blacklisted you! OMG!!!

crashWorld hunter Friday, February 29, 2008 2:56:29 PM

Tomorrow is St. Davids day that means welsh cookies! yum.

MossMan Friday, February 29, 2008 4:25:38 PM

@P*Nut: this is part of the image that French Cuisine has - Nouvelle Cuisine in the '80s etc. is totally unrelated to the boring normal food you actually eat.

@Hellownurse: didn't know that. Interesting.

@World hunter: if I knew what they were, I might be interested in trying to find and eat some! lol

crashWorld hunter Friday, February 29, 2008 5:15:43 PM

There fried on a griddle like a pancake, they have current berrys in them and instead of useing butter to mix them they use lard. They are awsome especialy with a glass of milk.

MossMan Sunday, March 2, 2008 10:55:22 AM

Sounds very healthy! wink

crashWorld hunter Sunday, March 2, 2008 1:05:29 PM

And verry yummy.

Linhellownurse Sunday, March 2, 2008 5:41:18 PM

sorry to be posting this here,
but the link to the next Hash seems to be still "pinsaguel". Hmmmm...

MossMan Monday, March 3, 2008 9:32:30 AM

Lapdancer told me that he hasn't heard anything from DairyQueen - who's supposed to be hare next weekend...

P*nutP*Nut Monday, March 3, 2008 9:47:57 AM

I so want to know how they both got those nick names lol

MossMan Monday, March 3, 2008 11:48:59 AM

I have to be honest and say... I don't know!

Lapdancer... might have been told where that came from but don't remember it if I was.

DairyQueen... is a member from before my time who has only showed up a couple of times recently. Don't know her very well.

Sorry! smile

P*nutP*Nut Monday, March 3, 2008 12:29:39 PM

Rub-bish! wink

crashWorld hunter Monday, March 3, 2008 5:56:51 PM

What about the piggly wiggly. Thats another strange name for a store.

Unregistered user Monday, March 3, 2008 11:42:41 PM

Anonymous writes: Big surprise. ANOTHER A-list celebrity steps in front of the camera with a tax deductable contribution. Promoting her latest multi-million dollar project in the very same segment. Using her 'humanitarian' image as an excuse for her own incredible greed. As an excuse to concentrate the world's wealth and resources in her own back yard. As an excuse to live an extravogant, power-hungry, jet-setting, global warming lifestyle. Traveling the world in the name of 'humanity'. WAKE UP PEOPLE. DREW BARRYMORE IS JUST ANOTHER FILTHY RICH MULTI-MILLIONAIRE HOLLYWOOD HUMANITARIAN. THIS LITTLE PR STUNT WILL MAKE HER EVEN RICHER IN A MATTER OF WEEKS. ITS JUST BUSINESS.

P*nutP*Nut Tuesday, March 4, 2008 12:09:54 AM

I have not one clue to what you are referring, Mr. Anonymous.

It's certainly not related to French Cuisine or even the latest Hare Hash Mossman and Hellownurse are going on!

I might even dare to venture that .... and I hope you can forgive me for this ... you have not read the blog upon which you are commenting. Shocking accusation I know!

Mossman has not even tagged this one "Drew Barrymore" as he occassionally likes to do (or I encourage him to) so I can't even say you read the tags!

Ah well! Hope you enjoy ranting incoherently on a million other blogs this evening. Tattybye!

MossMan Tuesday, March 4, 2008 6:29:21 AM

DREW BARRYMORE!!!

DERREEWWWWW BAAAAARRRYYYYYMMMOOOOORRE!!!


P*nutP*Nut Tuesday, March 4, 2008 6:36:21 AM

Yah! Yah! Yah! Right on sister!

MossMan Tuesday, March 4, 2008 9:58:09 AM

lol

Linhellownurse Wednesday, March 5, 2008 1:44:49 AM

Just checked the Hash site, apparently the next Hash will be at Colomiers!
I've just met a new friend in Uni who's an exchange student from Birminham Uni. She sounds interested about the Hash!!!

MossMan Wednesday, March 5, 2008 9:23:58 AM

Since it's so last minute, we haven't had time to check out how to get there. I think there's a bus - but I might cycle there on my own if Jas doesn't feel like going. We still have to decide.

Linhellownurse Wednesday, March 5, 2008 3:49:14 PM

It seems positive that I will be going since the girls are excited about Hash! smile) We'll probably check out how to get to Colomiers somehow... LOL apparently the American girl is a hardcore Hash Runner!!! She was so excited about it when she heard it from my friend because her dad use to be a hasher back in the US!

MossMan Wednesday, March 5, 2008 3:51:37 PM

Cool! Oh well then I definitely have to go now! doh wink

Since I'm Religious Advisor... angel

Linhellownurse Wednesday, March 5, 2008 4:09:19 PM

What on earth does a "Religious Advisor" do?! Making sure that all hashers do MEAN what they sing?! LOL

Well I've just checked that we could take bus 64 from Arene Metro station, and we would probably arrive at 15:07 at Lycee International Victor Hugo. It's really great that Dairy Queen has organise a Hash where the bus will take us! smile

galadriel Monday, April 14, 2008 12:37:16 PM

I thought there would have been a lot of different foods in France... I was there for only 4 hours but I only ate Maccas sad Well, it is cheap wink

You can get pretty much everything here. There are delicatessans selling meats, foreign cheeses, european lollies. Then there are Asian supermarkets full of weird and wonderful things smile

beavidal Thursday, June 5, 2008 11:56:55 PM

what I hate most in French cuisine is the size of the dishes... I mean, how much food they put in your dish, and how much money do you spend to eat so bad...

MossMan Friday, June 6, 2008 5:57:13 AM

Again... that's "French Cuisine" as it's promoted in expensive restaurants in the rest of the world.

A normal portion of steak and fries with salad is pretty much the most standard meal in restaurants in Toulouse.

beavidal Friday, June 6, 2008 1:07:00 PM

Yeah, that's the problem, one way or other...

steak and fries you can eat in every place in the world. french, or italian, or deutsch or any other food from the countries aren't known to be special?

visit somewhere to eat 'normal' food isn't nice to someone who wants to proove the famous cuisine. and the 'famous' food isn't that so good.

for the example, the italian pizza, who almost everybody thinks that's an italian traddition dish. you go there and proove it, and the pizza is simply the worst I've ever eaten.

MossMan Friday, June 6, 2008 2:56:48 PM

lol

That's a matter of taste, I think. Italian pizza is a thin pancake with some tomato, oregano, olive oil and cheese on it. There are a lot of pizzerias here and they do the same, although with French varieties like goats cheese, duck breast or Roquefort.

Pizza Hut etc. serve what is known here as "American Pizza"... ie. thick dough and lots of topping.

Personally I like both. But then again, I am a pizzaholic. bigsmile

beavidal Friday, June 6, 2008 3:15:23 PM

smile pizzaholic huh?

I love pizza too! And yes, with a thin pancake, but what goes on it, is what really matters! p

Those fat pancakes just make you feel satisfied when you're not! lol


MossMan Friday, June 6, 2008 3:21:04 PM

Hmmm... Friday night - perhaps I'll ask Jazz if I'm allowed to have a three-cheeses pizza tonight. It's the weekend, and I've been pizzaless for about a month now... idea

MossMan Friday, June 6, 2008 3:25:51 PM

On second thoughts, our local pizza-kiosk isn't so good on Friday or Saturday since they rush to keep up with orders. Best wait till Sunday instead... then they're cooked till they have crispy golden-brown cheese, dark and crusty base but a deliciously cooked-to-perfection filling. Mmmm...

Damn, I'm hungry all of a sudden!

beavidal Friday, June 6, 2008 4:04:32 PM

lol

Will you wait untill Saunday?

So hungry as you are, I guess it's hard to wait! p

MossMan Friday, June 6, 2008 6:27:00 PM

Four cheese sandwiches later... I'm not so into pizza any more! lol

beavidal Friday, June 6, 2008 8:43:07 PM

lollol

crashWorld hunter Tuesday, June 17, 2008 2:06:24 AM

Even better an all you can eat breakfast buffet and then a cheese cake that weighes as much as a lead balloon. doh

MossMan Tuesday, June 17, 2008 10:58:08 AM

We had pizza on Friday. Unfortunately it was disappointing. While I was waiting I asked if they were always so rushed and they said it's not every night that everyone watches France playing European cup football instead of cooking their own meals... lol

I am not a follower of football, as you might have guessed. wink

P*nutP*Nut Tuesday, June 17, 2008 12:12:09 PM

lol

The Sports news is on Radio One which I hear most mornings, and it just washes over me. I hear the words but none of the meaning gets through so I can still be clueless that England are playing some match or another that night.

It's amazing how I can switch off my brain when something of no interest to me is trying to weasel it's way into there.

I hear there's some sort of tournament going on at the moment. I don't know - I'm watching a different channel! bigsmile

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