4 ms·
French here. I think there are several points in the way we approach food here in France. There is a long tradition of gastronomy. Not saying we are the only c
by JeanMarcS 9y ago
French here. I think there are several points in the way we approach food here in France.
There is a long tradition of gastronomy. Not saying we are the only country in the world with a good gastronomy, of course not, but it's in our genes. I think we are one of little peoples that are talking about food when eating.
When you eat with other people, there is always a moment when you start talking about a restaurant, or a time, where/when you had a great meal.
We are also obsessed with our traditional meals or food. For example, close to each dairy farm have its sort of cheese. A lot of them will never cross the US border:-) There are moe than 1200 sort of cheese [1] and even protected ones, meaning the recipes and origin are protected by 'law' [2].
And that's also true for ham, delicatessen (and we love those), meat, poultry, and everything coming from unindustrialized farms (or not too much).
That's something we really care about. And because those foods taste something, there is no need to add sugar or other in it.
Of course, that's for the tradition picture. But we also eat junk food, microwaved food (even more since the 70's crisis where working or finding work became harder and harder each year). We just went 3-4 decades eating bad, especially in cities, and the obesity epidemy is somthing real in France too.
Fortunatly there was a wake up call in the middle of the 2000's and more and more people try to come back to less industrialized processed food.
And in conclusion, there's something true for French : we LOVE to eat !
[1] List in French : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_fromages_fran%C3%A7ais https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_de_fromages_fran%C3%A7ai...
[2] Short list in English : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_cheeses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_cheeses
- fjsolwmv 9y agoWhat is delicatessen? In USA that just means cold cuts of meat.
- JeanMarcS 9y agoWell I used Google Translate, but I guess it's something like that. The french word is Charcuterie. I haven't found a website in English, but here some pictures and classification (in french) http://www.cuisinealafrancaise.com/fr/produits/boucherie-charcuterie/charcuterie-terrines-pates http://www.cuisinealafrancaise.com/fr/produits/boucherie-cha... Searching was also the occasion for me to remember that french gastronomy is since 2010 "Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" :-) http://us.france.fr/en/information/gastronomic-meal-french-5 http://us.france.fr/en/information/gastronomic-meal-french-5
- kasey_junk 9y agoWe use the French word in the states.
- JeanMarcS 9y agoOh ok ! Learned something, thanks.
- kasey_junk 9y agoI mean, to be fair you’ll also see antipasto, deli tray, meat & cheese board or even in some German influenced communities “vespers”. But if you say charcuterie you’ll be understood.
- carlmr 9y agoInteresting to see Vesper (pronounced Feshper where I live). That's a distinctly southern German term that not even most Germans will use.
- kasey_junk 9y agoI’ve seen it used mostly in small towns in the Midwest that were strongly German immigrant communities. If you go to the upper Midwest you will similar odd uses of Scandinavian words. It would not surprise me at all to learn that these communities are using archaic or even incorrect words.
- carlmr 9y agoIt's correct and not archaic, it's just something very localized in Germany, which I wouldn't necessarily expect a mixed immigrant community to adopt.
- frio 9y agoDelicatessen means the same thing. "Meat" in Europe, we learnt while we were there, doesn't really mean what it means in the Anglosphere. For us, "meat" groups up and basically means any animal flesh. For them (or at least: France, Spain, Italy), meat, poultry, delicatessen are all different classifications. Push the term "meat" down a layer in your ontology :).
- midgetjones 9y agoThe literal translation (from German delikat essen) is 'delicious food'