LoveItaly

Sure obxgirl, the small city I live in has some supermarkets. The food, produce, meat etc. is "alright" but we do not have any store that sells fantastic food. One supermarket did start selling grassfed beef..which is so much more delicious then grainfed beef,and so much more healthier for you. I bought it a lot. Than one day the store no longer sold it..people would not pay the higher price for grassfed beef.

Our Farmer's Market is double in price for produce which would be fine IF the produce was a lot better then the "cardboard" produce the supermarkets sell. But it isn't. I have talked to people that have been born and raised in my small city and they call the merchandise at the Farmer's Market a ripoff. There are some small stands out in the agriculture areas, but it takes at least 30 minutes to drive to them.

If one lives say in San Francisco..one has an abundance of beautiful and truly tasty food to buy..overpriced but still good at the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building and reasonably priced at the Civic Center.

But there is not much to brag about food wise where I live in spite of the fact the population is getting close to 100,000.

I can't help but compare the food I can buy in my small city to the food that my friends can buy in their small city..which has a population of 36,000.

I am sure not being Anti-American..I just wish we had better food.

cigalechanta

Right now I'm reading a book by a French Woman and recently translated to English, "Market Day in Provence."
She says that alot of the food in the markets are industrialized, grown under plastic and not always less expensive than shopping Auchans and other places. The author was director of studies at L'Ecole des Hautes E'tudesen sciences sociale. The book has caused quite a stir in the food community especially chefs.

mikelg

I am basque and live in the (Spanish)Basque Country, where food is a true religion for most people, and it makes us very proud of it (in fact, in such a tiny territory there is the highest concentration of three Michelin star restaurants in the world). I´ve also lived in the US (WI) and in France, and I think that the main difference is cultural. Food did not seem important to my friends in the US. Chicken and pasta, as a rule, even in weddings!!. If salads, the dressing was always artificial. Olive oil, never ever. For special occassions, chicken (here we consider it as a low class meat, hardly found in a restaurant menu). If cheese, just cheddar (funny enough, they held a World Cheese Championship where all participants were American and all cheeses were...cheddar). Guess which country and what cheese won!

Here, as in France, we like to spend hours cooking. We held cooking championships. We love to know about other cuisines. Cooks are friends, not competitors, and they share their secrets. Men cook a lot (we have the "txokos", where men spend hours cooking and women are always guests). We use olive oil, never butter. Ingredients are always fresh. And, above all, we like and are proud of cooking.

Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule, but just a piece of information: there are just three?McDonalds in the whole Basque country (2.200.000 people).

ekscrunchy

And you have the best seafood in the WORLD, bar none, in the Basque country (and Galicia) of Spain.

mitchdesj

toulousaine, I've found a good ham at a italian deli, it reminds me of the jambon de parmes that they use in France, here they call it cooked prosciutto, it's a very large and narrow piece. I find it readily in montreal but when I lived in Denver, the best deli in town argued with me that it did not exist.

I find that by using high quality olive oil and fresh herbs and also high quality vinegars and mustards , you can infuse a taste of europe to almost anything.... simplicity is key.

heavens, invest in a few simple cookbooks of provence cuisine and you'll realize we have everything at hand to duplicate it.

Sue_xx_yy

Trudaine

While I don't dispute the notion that small local farms have shorter supply lines and thus don't incur as high transport costs, there are other factors to be considered, and so-called decadence and greed are the least of them.

Sunshine - too little: Tomatoes have a hard time germinating without a sufficiently long solar season. Example: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada: latitude 53 N. (I wonder if the area around London, England - latitude 51 N, has the same problem - I certainly don't recall seeing tomato growing fields in England.)

Or: Newfoundland, Canada - an extremely foggy place; they had a spectacular failure a few years back with a major greenhouse operation (in which, at best, they could grow cucumbers - and that only with the aid of artificial lighting.) These areas will always have to import some of their produce, which means a heavy reliance on canned and frozen product. Fortunately, packaging methods are improving.

Soil quality. Bedrock where I live is sometimes almost at grade level. There's a reason why we are a region of fishermen, not farmers, as a rule. In other regions, there are other problems, most significantly water availability (which is going to be a real problem very soon in many parts of the world - including France and Britain.)

Health: Modern packaging is often criticized, but it does have health benefits. Food stays fresher longer, and some 'additives' are beneficial (like the Vitamin D added to milk which has virtually eliminated rickets).

Urbanization: Modern life as we know it would not be possible in a subsistence farming scenario, which is what used to exist beforehand. Like it or not, the world is six billion and growing - we need to be efficient, or else! It makes sense to have some farm subsidies (For example, I can understand Japan's desire to have at least some rice grown domestically) but by and large, the world as a whole cannot afford it.

Starvation: Still a problem, but modern agricultural methods have saved millions of lives. (North America has for a long time been a net exporter of grain, at very reasonable prices. Even India and Pakistan now export grain.) Before one eats <i> well &lt;i/&gt; one must be able to eat <i> at all &lt;i/&gt;.

Nothing imparts flavour to food like being truly hungry for it!</i></i>

RufusTFirefly

Another possiblity that may be covered above somewhere, but when on vacation perhaps people have more time to really pay attention to where they eat and can take time to savor and enjoy meals.

GSteed

Nonesense! Great tasting food is possible and available anyplace. Problems: USA schools have dropped Home Ec classes. Parents are either unable to teach their children to cook or don't know how. I suggest that acclaiming French food is simply a sly way to let someone else know you have been to France. Read George Orwell and his account of working in French restaurants.

BTilke

Sue, you can get some very good tomatoes in late summer in the UK. They're not large beefsteak tomatoes, but they are thin skinned and full of flavor. Many come from Kent.

j_999_9

I'm curious about the OP's background -- ethnicity, lifestyle, place of residence, etc.
Sometimes people who have little or no exposure to ethnic food will go to Europe and be wowed by the cooking, simply because they've had no exposure to it.
Now, I'm not saying the OP is some bumpkin. Just making a personal observation.
And the decline of food prep in the US is correlated with the lack of home ec classes? Gimme a break. Maybe I should tell my mother -- an incredible cook -- that she'd be som much better if only she had taken home ec. (I'll make sure she doesn't have a cast-iron pan in her hand when I say it.)

LLindaC

while I prefer rillifane I must respond to GSneed. In the early early 70s when I was forced to take home ec, we learned to make biscuits with cinnamon and sugar on them (from a roll) and casseroles made from canned tuna, frozen peas and Campbell's mushroom soup. In fact, I'm sure most Americans out there grew up on Campbell soup casseroles. In France, the cassoulet is a completely different animal, so to speak. I've relearned cooking on my own.

Heavens

OP, is that me? OK, culinary background: Grew up in TX. Both parents cooked. Both from New England and when relatives came to visit they always brought fresh flounder and lobster for my Dad to cook, or local grinders from the best Italian place they could find. My Dad, frustrated in Dallas, would go to the weirdest neighborhoods to find ethnic stores to get the best ingredients for his creations. He loved to cook Italian. He would take a full day to make his spegetti sauce. We often ate out at Greek restaurants. We would drive 30 minutes for the &quot;good&quot; authentic Mexican restaurant, not the chain.

I traveled internationally for ten years with Pan Am, the blue ball, after graduating from college. Travelled and ate all over the world. Before Paris, Istanbul, hawaii, and Rome would have been my eating favorites.

Met DH, also loves to cook. We cook together. Own about 50 cookbooks and watch the Food Network almost every Saturday for inspiration.

On trips we LOVE to browse wine shops, gourmet shops, and local restaurants. Sushi is one of our favorites. We live near San Diego now, and love the fresh seafood there among other wonderful cuisines. We often hang out in Whole Foods and have to be very careful not to spend too much on our visits there.

We don't consider ourselves gourmets, we really enjoy the simpler approaches to food. We don't believe that you have to spend outrageous prices to enjoy a good meal or a good bottle of wine. We love to experiment and try new places and flavors, new restaurants, especially those recommended by friends. Our last trip before Paris was to wine country north of Santa Barbara where we went to numerous wineries buying wine to bring home, and falling in love with both Los Olivos Cafe and the Hitchin Post in Buellton. Hope I didn't run on too long to answer the question.

Intrepid1

I still think if you are a BAD cook no amount of &quot;the freshest ingredients&quot; are going to make you a &quot;good cook&quot; or your food taste &quot;wonderful.&quot;

toulousaine

mitchdesj, yes I can get good proscuitto (however you spell it) here, but not the good fresh ham like for sandwiches.

Heavens, I still believe we are right! The food in France, generally, IS better. No matter what all the negative people say. I lived there, shopped and ate daily and YOU ARE RIGHT! When my uncle comes to visit (he's American but has lived in France since the 70's) he always is amazed at how much less flavor the food has, from produce in season, to lunchmeat, etc.
As for the person who commented on the wine, I don't even think you can compare US wines to French ones. They have different qualities, different features and I love them both for different reasons. I live in wine country here in the USA and we have some BAD ones and some fantastic ones. I've also had incredibly foul wine in France and superb wine there too.
Anyone who is angry over this thread should STOP READING IT. I think this is a wonderful discussion with interesting perspectives.

toulousaine

I found this discussion on the internet. It is an interview with some French people regarding the French Paradox. Here is the link: http://www.themorningnews.org/archiv...ch_paradox.php And here is a quote from a French woman who lives in the USA:
&quot;It is, however, true that open-air markets are popular in France, and it is customary for people to buy their produce there. The food is usually fresher and the contact with the sellers friendlier than at the grocery store. But since grocery stores are usually cheaper than marches, lots of people actually buy their produce or their meat in supermarkets.

In the U.S., marches don’t exist, and butcher shops and bakeries are not common either, so the only option is really to go to the grocery store. I have been in various farmers’ markets several times, but the quality was disappointing and prices were a little too high for me.

There is no cafeteria at my workplace, and I am lucky enough to work almost across from a Whole Foods market. I usually have lunch there and shop a little every day. Contrary to France, milk is pasteurized in the U.S., which actually forces you to do some shopping a couple of times a week! [French milk products are treated using ultra-high-temperature pasteurization, a process that renders them shelf-stable, unopened, for months.—eds.] I think that produce is really expensive in American grocery stores, but fortunately I found produce markets, which are much cheaper than grocery stores. That’s the only way for me to eat healthy and cheap! I am still searching for a good baguette, though…&quot;

GSteed

Pertinent...Which French food (entree, dessert, sauce) tastes better than a similar one in the USA? Any 'cook'should be able to produce a 10 omelette. Eater's preferences will require taste variations that another may not like. What do the French have to compete with Florida crabs or Wisconsin walleyed pike?

PatrickLondon

Wisconsin walleyed pike? Sounds like the kind of dish that would see you through the week....

Sue_xx_yy

Btilke - well, there's another of my fine theories ruined by an inconvenient fact! Reading your post, I remembered that the growing season can start earlier in England, owing to warmer temperatures.

But the point I'm getting to is apt - we adapt our cooking to life's realities, and for many people, that means they actually come to like canned food products and other processed food.

Example: In Hawaii, I was stunned to see <i> five pound </i> tins of the processed meat known variously as Kam, Spam, etc. In Hawaiian cuisine, this product features prominently, and I'll bet plenty of people there would bristle at the idea that this is not good tasting food. It's right up there with all the fresh fish and vegetables that Japanese immigrants brought to Hawaii. And my Dad spent many years adding tinned evaporated milk into his tea, because he came to like the taste during the War. And then there are people who prefer - yes! - the taste and texture of sliced white bread (marketed as 'Wonder' bread in many parts of the US) to, for example, stone-ground wholegrain bread. (I don't know how Wonderbread lovers would rate French baguettes - possibly in between, since of course traditonal baguettes are also nothing like whole grain breads.)

****

[Note: Toulousaine: For a time back in the 80s, long-life milk was processed and marketed by our local dairy, as an alternate to their usual product. It wasn't a major success here, being both more expensive and with a noticeably different taste than what local consumers were used to. I miss having ready access to shelf-stable cream, but otherwise don't mind the extra shopping.]

ekscrunchy

What area of the US is that woman quoted referring to when she says that marches, butchers and bakeries do not exist in the US? No farmer's markets, butchers and bakers here in the US?

LLindaC

well, scrunchy, it is true that inner city dwellers are at an extreme disadvantage in finding fresh produce and healthy foods. Groceries are scarce and the costs of good fresh food is beyond their ability to pay. For all who are interested, I recommend two very good books &quot;Fast Food Nation&quot; by Eric Schlosser and &quot;Food Fight&quot; by Kelly Brownell. They both will open your eyes to the complex problems of obesity, advertising and the politics of the food industry.