Food Tag

I was tagged by Zhu to list seven foods from France that I like and seven that I don't. Let's start with the foods I like:

Croissants, especially croissants au beurre

This is how I measure how good a bakery is. If the croissant is good, the rest of the stuff will be good. A good croissant is a delicate balance of buttery-ness and crispyness and just melts in your mouth with how good it is. You can only find good croissants in France, don't even try in the US. I think the secret is the butter. French butter has a higher butterfat content; it must contain at least 82% butterfat while in America only 80% is required, and the process used to make butter also adds more acidity to the flavor. Other croissant varieties are croissant aux amandes, croissant aux amandes et chocolat (deee-lish!), and I've also seen croissant aux framboises.

Quiches and tartes

Not the same thing, but similar enough that they get lumped together so I can include crepes on my list.

I love being able to buy delicious little mini quiches at local boulangeries. You can go in at lunch, look at your choices, pick a yummy little quiche and get it heated and ready to eat right away. My favorite boulangerie in my town in France, also the best one in town (had to try them all, of course) had this amazing tomato mustard quiche that I used to buy a lot. The classic quiche is of course the quiche lorraine, but I've never had one because I don't eat pig products. I assume it's good though. Salmon and spinach and tuna and tomato are other common combinations.

Tartes in France can be sweet or savory and I like both. Sweet tartes are basically a pie without the pastry on top. Again, you can get little mini tarte bites from boulangeries, which are usually sweet (tarte a la framboise and tarte a la fraise), or you can get big pie-sized tartes, usually tarte aux pommes or tarte tatin (both made with apples). The savory ones are a lot like quiches but they do not have an egg base. A popular savory tarte in the northern departements is tarte aux maroilles - the stinky cheese made popular by Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis.
*Note: boulangeries are open all day long and are therefore a good option for picking up a snack if you're hungry at 4 PM when all the restaurants are closed.

Canard

I love duck, and I love that it is on every menu in France. Magret de canard, or duck breast, with a fruit sauce, is a classic, as is confit de canard, or duck cooked in its own fat (sounds disgusting but is tender and tasty). I had the best duck of my life when I was in the Loire with my parents - a wonderful confit de canard in a curry sauce. Magret de canard is also common on salads.



Crepes and Galettes

Love 'em. Nutella crepes on the street are one of the best things you will ever eat. I also really like galettes. The only problem with crepes and galettes is that they aren't really filling enough to make a meal and they're kind of expensive, so you end up spending a lot of money trying to have a filling dinner. I did stumble on a crepe and salad place in the Marais once that had a well-priced menu.

*I'm also a fan of the galette des rois

Escargot

Yep, I actually like the infamous snails! It isn't about the snail itself, it's all about the sauce, a buter, garlic and herb based sauce that gives flavor to otherwise chewy little gastropods.

Cheese

I'm a big fan of dairy products, especially cheese. Sure, I miss cheddar, but I enjoy the infinite variety of cheeses in France. France has between 350 and 400 different types of cheese. I wasn't able to pin down an exact number. Who knew that so many different flavors could be created by a bacterial process?

Bread

Naturally baguettes are a favorite - a cheap, quick way to have a carb with your dinner or make a gigantic sandwich - but I also love all the different types of bread. They use a lot of different types of grains and yeasts to make different "normal" breads that are good. They also put things like olives, cheese, and tomatoes into bread and those are really good. That's something I wish we had more of in the US.

Now onto the foods I don't like:

Boudin Noir
Blood sausage. Need I say more? I blame the fact that I try this on cruel French people who took advantage of the fact that I was newly arrived and didn't speak French that well yet.

Herbs and Spices, or lack thereof

Sorry France, seasoning with only salt and pepper just doesn't cut it. And the complete and utter lack of heat in anything is just annoying. I can't even tell you how many times someone has said to me "careful! it's spicy!" only to try it myself and not be able to taste any spice whatsoever. Flavoring doesn't even have to be hot, you can use things that add flavor like rosemary, basil, oregano... Food in the south tends to have more herby flavoring but in the north salt and pepper are the only things in the spice cabinet. They buy mayonnaise and mustard to eat with the food to give it flavor.


Overabundance of pig products

As previously stated, I don't eat anything that was part of a pig at one point in time. Yes, I grew up in a kosher house, pigs are expressly forbidden, that of course has something to do with it. But I've tried pork and it just doesn't cut it for me, I find it flavorless and fatty and gross. But of course in France there are always lardons on salads and in quiches and omelettes. Yuck.

Andouillettes

This was another incident when I was tricked into trying something by cruel Frenchies. Andouilletes are sausages made out of intestines. Gross. In fact, let's just state right now that anything made out of intestines and stomachs and non-muscular parts of the body of an animal are very gross in my book. Remember, Americans like to think that the meat they buy in little plastic packages has nothing to do with actual animals who once wandered in the fields.

Foie gras

I have no idea why this is considered a delicacy, to me it just tastes fatty and blah. The texture is all off. And I haven't even started talking about the inhumane practices in several foie gras farms.

French barbecue

Wimpy sausages and bland rice salads do not a BBQ make! The French are convinced that little skinny sausages and merguez are the basis of a good barbecue (I'll avoid the obvious joke about French men). Sometimes if you're lucky you get flavorless brochettes, which are either chicken or pork on a stick with peppers, onions, and sometimes other veggies. And then you get the rice salads. Rice mixed with canned corn and other diced vegetables, usually without any sauce to give it some flavor. If you're ever invited to a French BBQ, make sure you eat beforehand so that you don't have rely on their food to fill you up. Of course, since it will be a few hours between the time you arrive and the time you actually eat, that really won't help you much. I've been to several French BBQs and the only one that was comparable to an American barbecue was the night I herded sheep. The lamb chops probably came from that same herd.


Flammekueche, or Tarte Flambee

I don't hate it, but I wouldn't choose to eat it. For me it's an inferior form of pizza. Traditionally flammekueche is topped with creme fraiche, onions, and lardons (see above about pig products). You can get get other ingredients on it, like provencal style or even sweet varieties, but no matter what you put on it you're basically eating a super thin, hard to cut pizza with no sauce. Sauce is an important component of my pizzas, so tarte flambee doesn't really do it for me.

There you have it. Seven foods I do and don't like from France. I never know if people find it annoying to be tagged or not, so I'm not sure who to tag or how many, but something tells me that Andromeda and Leesa (although because she's out of the country she may not write about it for a month or more) and maybe Monique will appreciate tags. Anyone else who I didn't mention who wants to be tagged, consider yourself tagged and tell us all about the foods you like and don't like from the country you're currently living in!