Food in France

Aron's new fave:  Tropezienne

In previous posts, I've waxed poetic about the bread and pastries; the food is certainly one of the perks of traveling in France.  Boeuf Bourgignon, Salade Nicoise, savory galettes at a Creperie... The food has stood up to all our preconceptions - in fact, in Aron's case, it surpassed them.  We have not had even a mediocre meal in France.  So far, Normandy was the place with the absolute best food:  every single meal was exceptional and worth writing home about.  Honestly, though, the food is not cheap in France.
 Thankfully, by law, all restaurants must post their menus with prices outside, preventing many awkward moments.  (For example, I've been keeping my eyes open for a restaurant that serves Bouillabaisse.  This fish soup is proving difficult to find at a reasonable price; the cheapest one I've found to date was 26 Euro.  For a bowl of soup!  Hence my hesitation.)  You can certainly order "a la carte" but the better option is to take "la formule" which is basically the set menu for anywhere from 14-40 euro and you can choose an appetizer, main dish and dessert from a small list, with wine being extra.  In Nice, the restaurant prices were the highest of anywhere we've been in France, and we used the wine list as a litmus test.  Our modus operandi has been to order a demi-pichet of the vin de pays/house wine.  A half bottle was usually 8-13 euro, up to 5 euro more than elsewhere in France.

Some things that took a little getting used to:  

1.  Set times for meals.  Lunch is 12 to 2; dinner is 6 to 9.  If you show up at 1:30 you may be turned away because there isn't enough time to be served.  

2.  Frites are served with a surprising number of dishes, but use your fork, not your fingers.

3.  Coffee is normally served black and if you want cream, ask for milk, not cream (you will be corrected).

4.  Buying food "to-go" is a fairly new concept; look for baguette sandwiches "a emporter".

5.  If you ask for your steak to be cooked "medium" it will be rare; by our standards, the French undercook their steaks.

Boudin (blood sausage) and potatoes

As per usual, we put ourselves out there, trying many different things, such as Tripes a la Mode de Caen (tripes), Langue de Boeuf (beef tongue), Sardines Farcie avec fromage (sardines stuffed with cheese), Lapin avec Ratatouille (stewed rabbit with ratatouille), Moules Frites (mussels and fries) and they were all delicious.  But there was a mistake - Boudin Noir.  We bought a package at the epicerie and cooked it up at home with some potatoes.   We couldn't bring ourselves to eat more than a tiny nibble of the boudin.  Though it smelled good, the consistency was all wrong.  After the fork and knife punctured the sausage casing the texture was moist and crumbly like ricotta cheese.  It's amazing that after all the things we've tried, we just could not bring ourselves to eat more than a tiny nibble.  But the knowledge that this was really nothing more than congealed pig's blood didn't help.  Nope, couldn't do it.  I guess it must be an acquired taste.

But when the Boudin failed, there was always the omnipresent baguette to fall back on.  We've had many a meal consisting of one with a package of cheese and a bottle of wine for about 5 or 6 euro.  Simple, economical and delicious.  The French manufacture a couple hundred different types of cheeses, all waiting to be discovered, from St Albray (try it, if you can find it!) to Roquefort, we figured it was a good time to start.  

Salade Nicoise

A final, happy discovery was that there is an abundance of pasta in the French Riviera.  In fact, we learned that raviolis were invented in Nice, so there is some argument that pasta isn't strictly an Italian contribution to the culinary world.  One of my all-time favorite dishes here in France is called "Daube".  Similar to Boeuf Bourgignon, Daube is essentially a rich and flavorful stew.  The tender morsels of beef must be stewed in litres of red wine for hours.  The accompaniment of fresh raviolis in a mushroom cream sauce instead of the usual potatoes was unexpected, but a real winner.