AR

I must admit that whilst I find the French food experience highly satisfying - within less than a week I will yearn for something a little simpler (heck, even a McDonalds begins to look like a restaurant). What I do miss when eating in France is that they prefer herbs to spices.

sera

I love provencal cooking and find Parisian food a bit heavy; had great falafel in Paris, though.

m_kingdom2

Falafel is middle eastern, delicous as it is - nothing to do with France.

zootsi

My take is that to get good French food, you have to spend some money. Good Italian food however, can be had a very reasonable price.

m_kingdom2

I tend to agree with that analysis as Italian food is simple at every level. French food is far more complex and involves sauces and dishes that involve many processes. Thus, real French food requires more money to be spent!

capo

<i>But, for the casual, budget traveller the food just doesn't seem that great.</i>

The food in France has always been fine for this casual budget traveller.

lkim

My fiancee and I were in Paris in late spring of this year and we had fantastic meals and mediocore meals and the price did not always play a part. We are from SF and we too have wonderful restaurants and horrible restaurnts (price doesn't play a part here also). Also, everyone has different tastes. I firmly believe that there is something for everyone, everywhere.

julies

Christina and Mariarosa hit it on the head. It was the sameness of the choices that got to us. We were in small towns in rural France. There were no choices other than the same traditional types of French foods. No North African (which we love and have had in other parts of France). We did see a Chinese place and a Vietnamese place in Saumur and later regretted that we hadn't eaten there, but it was early on in the trip and we weren't aware of the fact that every night would just offer more of the same typical French foods. It was the sameness of the food that got to me. Every night we would walk through town and see nearly exactly the same things offered on every menu. There was no variety or other choices. And, yes, even though we don't do much of that at home, I was at the point where I would have loved to be able to go out for a burger and a beer. For those of you who are talking about bistros, brasseries and Paris etc. those weren't options. As i said right off the bat, I suspect things might be different if we were talking paying E50 a head for dinner. But, that wasn't the case. And, larger cities obviously have much more varied offerings as far as other types of cuisines. Also, don't get me wrong. With an exception the food wasn't really bad, it just wasn't particularly interesting.

SuzieC

I'm going to take a dangerous exception to the statement, &quot;Falafel isn't Parisian food...&quot; I say, it is now. So is Thai, Vietnamese, Moroccan, Kosher, Chinese, Japanese, Basque, Alsacien, Portugese, Mexican, &quot;Provencal&quot;, etc., etc., etc. Just as &quot;what is English food&quot;?...&quot;what is American Food?&quot; We now are all pretty much melting pots and cross cultures aren't we????

tropo

I must admit that on our last European trip, I didn't find the food that exciting in France, or even Italy for that matter. Yes, we did have some very nice dishes in Italy, and an occasional good dish in France, but overall, nothing to write home about. I guess if you have good restaurants back home, then you tend to compare the cooking overseas with hometown cooking. In Australia, especially, when I lived in Sydney, were blessed with a huge range of ethnic restaurants.
We have what is called, &quot;Modern Australian Cuisine&quot;, which is hard to compare with European cooking. This cuisine can sometimes be mix of Mediterranean and Asian. To be truthful I just ours to more &quot;exciting&quot; than European cooking.

m_kingdom2

French food is food whose origins lie in France. Indian food is food whose origins lie in India.

Just because you can dine on a foreign country's food in France doesn't make the food French. When one talks about having Italian, Chinese etcetera cuisine they mean food native to the country of its origin, so please stop talking rubbish.

kismetchimera

If you want to find delicious food you must go to Provence, not Brittany or the Loire Valley.
The food in Provence is absolutely delicious, is prepared with fresh herbs, olive oil , garlic and tomatoes .

We cant forget the large assortments of fresh vegetables and fruits ripened on the trees..the grapes, delicious wines etc..,

capo

<i>French food is food whose origins lie in France. Indian food is food whose origins lie in India.</i>

Well, in that case any &quot;Italian&quot; food made with tomatoes must be at least partly South American food, since the origin of the tomato is South America.

From a website I found...

According to the Britannica Online, the wild species of tomato &quot;originated in the Andean area of South America, probably mainly in Peru and Ecuador, and is thought to have been domesticated in Mexico long before the arrival of Europeans; its name is derived from the Nahuatl (Aztec) word <i>tomatl</i>. The tomato was introduced to Europe by the Spanish in the early 16th century. The Spanish and Italians seem to have been the first peoples to adopt it as a food; it has remained a staple of Italian cuisine.&quot;

cigalechanta

there is great food in Normandy and the Dordogne also each area has their own special cuisine. I favor Provence because I love the Fresh vegetables and the stuffed squash flowers and loup cooked on fennal stalks. Brittany i love for their incredible Belon Oysters and other fruits de mer. Both Normandy and Brittany have wonderful grilled and flamb&eacute; lobsters. Here in New Enfgland, you rarely find them grilled. Every area has it's own special cheeses, and local apertifs.

AR

Ooooo. We're splitting hairs now! If I have a tandoori in London, does that make it English food whereas if I have one in Cardiff - is that Welsh cuisine?
M_Kingdom, for once, has a valid point.

m_kingdom2

It doesn't matter what the ingredients are - I can make Italian dishes from English ingredients - as long as the recipe is from the country of origin then the dish is also from that country of origin!

Following your logic a gougere can only be French if the ingredient are all French, when in reality Swiss Gruyere is used!

JeanneB

julies,
We felt the same way about the French food. We were in Paris, the Dordogne, the Loire and Brittany...probably averaged 60 euros each at dinner, incl wine and appertif. While we had a few excellent meals, most of them didn't live up to what we've always heard about the &quot;fabulous French cuisine&quot;. We almost felt guilty for feeling that way. We expected to drool over every morsel. That just wasn't the case.

Call me uncultured, but the best thing I had in Paris was a hot crepe from a street vendor. (It helped that it was rainy and cold that day!). Next best was at a fabulous little Italian restaurant. Oh well, C'est la vie!

igemini48

Hi Julies
You are not alone...I did not like food in South of France: Sant Tropez, Maxime, La Cross where we where sailing. Everywhere was the same fish soup-huge bowl of fish broth and tiny pices of fish and fish bones..and the same chicken, meat or fish made the same way as here, so it was nothing &quot;french&quot; about it.....In Paris I did not enjoy it as well however was craving Pizza and had fabulous itlaian meal. Also enjoyed french bread the most. Superb French food was in Provence and Evian I have had in the first place, may that's why everything was in comperesing to it and expected more than I got.

Tangata

The worst food I have had in Europe has been in France. In Paris I persuaded my wife to try snails, one of my favourite starters, they arrived with the consistency of bullets!

In Lyon, we didn?t eat the bread rolls at dinner because they were grey, so they served them up for breakfast!

On the other hand, I have had some wonderful meals in the United Kingdom, particularly in Scotland.

nonnafelice

I agree with those who prefer the Provencal / Mediterranean cuisine to Parisian. For one thing, olive oil has pretty much replaced butter in our diet, and much of the Parisian fare just seems too rich to us. We like the simple, fresh-food-in-season approach better than lots of elaborate sauces.

In fact, on our last visit to Paris, we ended up eating most often in Italian restaurants. There was a little place called Mezzaluna in the St. Germain area that we loved. Great pizzas, and a charming host, Francesco.