|
Wining and dining -
eating out in France
Meals and meal
times in France
As
in most countries, there are three meals in a normal working
day in France. These are:
* Breakfast
- le
petit déjeuner [ler peutee day-zheu-nay]. In most cases
(at home or in hotels), this will consist of bread, butter and jam, or
croissants, perhaps some cereals and / or a glass of orange juice, and
a cup of tea or a cup or bowl of coffee or hot chocolate.
Older generations often drink their breakfast coffee or
chocolate from a bowl, younger generations (and hotels) tend to use
cups or mugs. At breakfast, coffee tends to be drunk as a
long drink, often with milk, as café au lait, not as the small black
expresso coffee that is preferred at other times of the day.
* Lunch
- le
déjeuner. Many places open for lunch as from 11.30 a.m.,
and continue serving new customers until about 1 p.m. Travellers
looking for lunch later than 1.15 p.m. may have to try several
restaurants before finding one that will serve them, or else make do
with a self-service restaurant, where times are generally more
flexible.
A typical French lunch will consist of:
a starter
(une entrée), such as a mixed salad, soup, some terrine or paté. A main course, ( le plat principal), typically a choice of meat or
fish, with potatoes, rice, pasta and/or vegetables; a cheese
course (often a selection of local cheeses) and/or a dessert.
Desserts are sometimes not detailed on the menu, so you have to listen
to the waiter. Common choices include: fruit tart (such as apple tart, tarte aux pommes), crème caramel,
ice-cream (glaces)
. Coffee at the end of the meal is an optional extra.
Many restaurants offer a special fixed lunchtime menu,
with limited choice, called le Menu du jour;
some propose just a special day's main course, called "plat du jour" [plar
dyu zhoor] in addition to the staple items offered on the menu. These
are often worth choosing, as they frequently represent very good value.
Almost all restuarants offer
a choice between a free choice of things to eat (eating à la carte),
and a choice of different menus; depending on the restaurant,
the menus may include some very sophisticated dishes.
* Dinner
- le
diner. In a French home, dinner - which may or may not be
the main meal of the day - is generally eaten between 7.30 p.m and 8.45
p.m. (The main French TV channels schedule their main evening
programmes to start at 8.45, after dinner is finished). In town and
city restaurants, dinner service often does not start until 8 p.m.;
however some restaurants such as self-service restaurants, and
restaurants in small towns or the country, start serving earlier.
For more details, see thee next section.
Eating out:
traditional restaurants
As stated above, a meal in a typical
French restaurant will consist of: a starter (une entrée), such
as a mixed salad, soup, some terrine or paté. A main course, (le plat principal,
[ler plar pranseeparle]) typically a choice of meat or fish, with
potatoes, rice, pasta and/or vegetables; a cheese course
(often a selection of local cheeses) and/or a dessert. Desserts
are sometimes not detailed on the menu, so you have to listen to the
waiter. Common choices include: fruit tart (such as apple tart, tarte
aux pommes), crème caramel, ice-cream (glaces). Coffee at the end of
the meal is an optional extra.
For special fixed lunchtime
menus, called le Menu du jour, see above.
It is in the evening, for dinner,
that French restaurants often pull out all the stops. Even on weekdays,
an evening meal is often a long-drawn-out affair, and diners can easily
spend between two and three hours at the table. Dining out, in France,
is an evening's event, not just a means to avoid feeling hungry; it is
highly unusual to find restaurants that chivvy their clients to eat up,
pay up and leave, as may happen in some other parts of the world.
The menu will contain the same stages as the
classic three/four-course menu indicated above, but may well
include five or six courses, with the addition of an "hors d'oeuvre" [or
d'eur-vreu] at the start, and a light green salad or a sorbet between
courses. In the best restaurants, diners will be expected to start with
a pre-meal drink (an apéritif),
which will be accompanied by little home-made snacks, which the French
call des amuse-bouche or
des
amuse-gueule [dayz amuse-girl] - a word that has on
occasions been misinterpreted by unsuspecting foreign diners - but
really means things to whet your appetite.
The number of courses, and the quality
of the food, will depend on the reputation and nature of the
restaurant, and also on the cost of the menu or à-la-carte dishes
chosen; but in any self-respecting restaurant, the cooking will be done
using fresh ingredients, and the chefs will take pride in their work.
How
much does it cost?
For those travelling on a tight budget, it should
be possible - particularly outside big cities or tourist traps - to
find a decent traditional French restaurant where one can eat a meal
for about 15 €uros, including a glass or carafe of wine; but it will
depend on the restaurant, and while 15 Euros will get you a full meal
in some restaurants, it is not always the case. In better, more
spohisticated, restaurants, expect to pay upwards from 25 €
(2008 prices) for a three-course or four-course evening meal, plus the
cost of wine and drinks.
"Nouvelle
cuisine" ?
Many French restaurants - and at the top end of
the scale, virtually all of them - have adopted "nouvelle cuisine".
In this, the accent is very much on quality, taste,
originality and presentation, rather than on quantity. While
the staple of traditional French cuisine might be something like a
plate laden with "steack
frites", steak, french fries and french beans (common in
restaurants serving workers and lorry-drivers), the main dish in a nouvelle cuisine
restaurant might be something like fine slices of roast beef, with
asparagus in an original cream sauce, with a small portion of pilau
rice and two cherry tomatoes - this being carefully arranged on the
plate and completed with some form of edible decoration.
Snails
& Frogs legs? Those
classic dishes that foreigners love to associate with France,
snails and frogs legs, belong more to the traditional cuisine than to
nouvelle cuisine; but they are not everyday fare in France! Like many
things, they belong to France's deep rural tradition. Both are indeed
tasty, though with snails it is really the butter-parsley-and-garlic
sauce that is the great taste, and with frogs' legs, the taste is not
very different from crunchy chicken wings. Note: most of the
frogs legs consumed in France are imported, and the decline in the frog
population in certain Asian countries, due to a lucrative export
market, has been - and is - an ecological disaster.
.
Other places
to eat in France
Due to the good
quality and variety of eating experiences offered in traditional
restaurants, France has less in the way of international cuisine than
some other countries; but with the globalisation of taste and culture,
this is changing quite fast.
Self-service
restaurants in France: Les "self": Self-service
restaurants are known in France as cafeterias or as just "selfs". They
can be found in motorway service areas, some big stations, city
centres, and in most large superstores on the outskirts of town. They
provide food of reasonable quality, but for logistical and price
reasons use more processed food than independent restaurants do.
Cafés,
bistrots, brasseries: these are all traditionally drinking
establishments, but like pubs in the UK, they have increasingly turned
to serving sandwiches and light (and in some cases even substantial)
meals, notably at midday.
Fast
food has invaded France at a pace (though nothing like the
pace of some other countries), and there are McDonald's all over the
place. The local French (well, actually it's Belgian) chain of
hamburger and fast-food outlets is called Quick. There are
plenty of other independent fast-food outlets, sometimes with weird
pseudo-English names such as "Big-Ban", "Royal Fast Food" "Mister Good
Fast" or "Le Fast Fast" (fast food for those on a diet?)
Pizzerias
can be found in virtually all French towns, and also along main roads,
though they tend to be independent establishments, rather than chains,
though there are some chains. The French prefer traditional
Italian-style pizzas, on a thin crust, and it is not common to find
deep-pan pizzas. Good pizza restaurants operate on the same model as
traditional French restaurants, offering three-course meals, where the
main course is a pizza.
It is very unusual to find pizzerias
offering different size pizzas.
Italian
restaurants: many pizzerias double up as Italian pasta
restaurants
Chinese
restaurants in France. Chinese restaurants are now common
in French towns - though often they are actually Vietnamese
restaurants. The food is of course oriental, but do not expect to find
just the same choice on the menu as in an English or American Chinese
restaurant; in France. Chinese restaurants are catering mainly for
French customers, and this is reflected in the menu, particularly in
the special three-course lunch or dinner menus. Chinese
restaurants often offer good value for money, particularly with their
set menus at lunch time.
Indian
restaurants: these are not as common in France as in the UK. As with
Chinese restaurants, French Indian restaurants reflect French standards
and habits, often paying considerable attention to presentation, and
providing an Indian variety of nouvelle
cuisine.
Algerian
Moroccan
and Tunisian restaurants. These are
quite common, on account of the links betwen France and North Africa.
While many are quite basic restaurants, catering for France's north
African community, others, more up-market, are sophisticated and offer
a fine eating-out experience.
Food
from other nations: in big towns and cities, many other
types of ethnic food restaurants can be found, but elsewhere, apart
from pizzerias and the occasional oriental restaurants, the eating is
mostly "à la française".
Vegetarian
food: while being one of Europe's big producers of fruit
and vegetables, France is not a good place for vegetarian eating. On
account of the generally good quality of food and catering, and the use
of fresh products, vegetarianism never really took off in France.
French vegetarians become outsiders in great French social
events, such as family meals and evenings at the restaurant.
Nevertheless, there are now vegetarian restaurants in many French towns
(if you can find them), notably in university towns.
At home in France -
eating "en famille"
Family meals
Meals
are still an integral part of family life in France, and the dining
table is perhaps the most important piece of furniture in a French
home. The French do not generally go in for pre-processed
pre-conditioned ready-made food, but prefer to make meals from the raw
materials - fresh meat and vegetables, and home made desserts. A
traditional "family meal", such as Sunday lunch, or a meal to which
guests are invited, can last two to four hours, or even longer in the
country.
During the week, many people will eat a
three-course meal at home every evening; though if all concerned - or
most of them - get a full three-course meal at lunch time in the works
canteen, in a restaurant, or at the school cantine (and, yes, a proper
balanced-diet 3-course meal is standard fare in French school
canteens), then the evening meal may often be lighter, a hot snack or
pasta or something similar, followed by yoghurt or a dairy desert and
fruit. The French eat a lot of fruit and vegetables, and a bowl of
green salad may well be provided at every meal. Outdoor
barbecues are very popular in suburban and rural France during the warm
months.
Useful
tips.
Here are a few points that are useful to know if
you are dining out, or inviting French visitors for a meal.
- The French
always eat bread with a meal, and the
bread basket is an essential element on any table.
- If there is a
cheese course and a desert, the
cheese course always comes first.; at least three different cheeses
will usually be served. Cheese is eaten with bread, not with biscuits.
- Don't confuse
salt and pepper pots. In France, the salt pot has several holes, and
the pepper pot just one. Alternatively, there may be coarse sea salt,
considered of finer quality than ordinary salt, and pepper from a
pepper-mill.
Glossary
of vocabulary and useful words.
Click here for:
Understanding
the menu: French English glossary of menu terms, optimised
for mobile devices
(The pronunciation is indicated between square
brackets)
Breakfast
- le petit déjeuner
[ler peutee day-zheu-nay].
Lunch
- le déjeuner
[ler day-zheu-nay]
Dinner
- le diner [ler
dee-nay].
A
starter - une
entrée [une on-tray]
The
main course, le
plat principal, [ler plar pran-see-parle]
A
dessert, le
dessert [ler dess-air]
Coffee:
un café
[ern caffay] (By default, this is a short strong black coffee)
Coffee
with milk:
un café au lait [ern caffay olay]
A
jug of water: une
carafe d'eau [une caraffe dough]
A
glass of water: un
verre d'eau [ern vair dough]
A
jug of red/white wine: une carafe de vin (rouge / blanc)
[une caraffe deu van (rooje / blon)]
I'll
take this menu: Je
prendrai ce menu-ci. [jeu prondray seu menu-see]
Could
you bring the bill please. L'addition, s'il vous plaît [la-dee-sio
seel voo play]
Where
are the toilets (washroom, etc): Où sont les toilettes, s.v.p?
[oo son lay twa-let, seel voo play]
|
Advertisements
**
Book
your table online at a restaurant in Paris or other French cities.
Hundreds to choose from:
|
|
***
***
|
***
|
