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| France French Recipes Cuisine | Provencal Mediterranean Cooking and Diet | Healthy Cooking Mediterranean Style |
Considered one the world’s most elegant and refined, French cooking has a reputation derived in large part from the almost obsessive French attention to detail. In the kitchen, this translates into a use of specific and complicated techniques, but also a strong resistance to making do in instances when the “best” ingredients might be out of season or unavailable. Still, what is known globally as classic French cuisine is in some ways a representation of the cooking styles of Lyon and the North of France. Traditionally, however, each region of France has its own recipes and methods of preparation.
In the south of France, it is more common to find uses of olive oil, duck fat, herbs, and oranges. In the northern regions, common ingredients are butter, cream, apples, potatoes, and beer for preparation and flavoring. In much of the North and certain regions in the south, wine not only fills the glass at mealtimes, it frequently has a part in the cooking process.
Nearly all the popular and well-known French dishes are regional specialties. While recipes may be enjoyed in other parts of France, it is common knowledge that ingredients quality is best in the region of origin.
The northwestern coastal regions are famous for seafood dishes. In Normandy, fish are poached in cider and laid with an apple cream sauce. In the Breton, fish stews and stuffed shellfish platters are common. In areas where fruit is produced in bountiful orchards, one can expect to find the superior preparation of fruit sauces. The Loire valley is certainly one such region. Also known as “the garden of France,” here fruit and wines are richly combined with butter to make sumptuous glazes for meat and vegetables. The country’s wooded hillsides and numerous fresh water tributaries are an abundant source of wild game and fish. Sophisticated pates, soups, sauces, and stuffing recipes distinguish the regions along the Dordogne River. But these areas are also known for carefully prepared veal and rabbit.
| French Provencal Cooking and Recipes | Mediterranean Diet and Cuisine | Healthy Cooking Italian Mediterranean Style |
Nature speaks to the French with polite suggestion. Fresh local produce is a quintessential element of French cuisine. But the cuisine has also been mediated by history and geography. Regions bordered by other countries share with those countries the reward and enjoyment of a mutual influence in cooking styles. In these regions, cuisine holds characteristic similarities to the cooking of neighboring Belgium, Germany, Italy, or Spain.
Fine examples of French culinary exchange include the high profile of beer in Calais and Champagne, sauerkraut in the Alsace, pasta in western Provence, and peppers and garlic in the furthest south. Shifting borders due to war and brief colonization have also made inroads on French cuisine. The short visit to southern France by the Moors of Al-Andalus imported middle-eastern tastes. In the north, French food culture was famously impacted by the arrival of Catherine Di Medici of Florence upon her marriage to King Henri II in 1533. Following the young princess to France was an entourage of Italian culinary masters, who brought with them a fresh infusion of food ideas and dining habits from Italy.
In France, mealtime begins with hors d’oervres, followed by soup, a main course, salad, and finally dessert. Wine typically accompanies the meal, but is rarely drunk outside of it. Wine and cheeses are key parts of the cuisine, and are produced across the country in enormous variety. The Gallic taste for both delicate and strong flavors ensures great selection of dishes and ingredients used in the French repertoire. Sheep’s foot is no less exotic to the French palette than sweetbread - and for that matter, neither are tongue, intestines, brain, kidney, tripe, blood sausages and sauces. Rather than being leftovers reserved for small animals and the poor, expertly prepared they are considered delicacies among well-to-do French.
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