It's not only about the image or the dishes, it's about the general empathis French people put on food. As a a guy who lives in Germany and quite often go to France to visit my mother's family i am always astonished about being able to spend 3 hours just at lunch or having entire conversation about food how you'd talk about football or politics in other countries. As long as this approach to food remains im not worried about French food. French people have kinda adopted to the stereotype of French food being good and feel proud about it. So they continue to live this food culture. The video in general is quite good. But you missed the entire story about escoffier revolutionizing cuisine. Also in my opinion French food cuisine greatly benefits from France's geography which combines a lot of different climates in little space. You have the atlantic with it's seafood, the south with olive oil and herbs which tends towards italian food, the east with heavy dishes similar to germanic cuisine...combine this with the influx of new food from north africa and vietnam and you get a great mix
I agree very much with your last point. In the end I would however still associate French cuisine more with the typical butter/deep tastes (like Belgian cuisine) than with olive oil/light tastes (like Italian cuisine)
Another thing to add to your "I'm not worried about french food" point. While most top 10 ranking of restaurant, whatever their methodology, do not contain lots of french one anymore, the vast majority of their chef have been trained in france. While our food is not as popular as italian's for example (litterally popular, as known, liked and consumed regularly by the people), we still have the most significant food soft power. I'm confident we'll continue to inovate, and create both the best and worst food at the same time
@@parkergiele Indeed, it was french chefs that codified the high-end restaurant workings of a cuisine (and still continue to reinforce and innovate in this field), making it a perfect clockwork machine, and frankly I don't see any other possible model that could surpass it in terms of efficiency or quality of the work. French gastronomy is not only the art of cuisine, it's the art of the table. From the farmer's market to the dish cleaning station going through the burning stove and the client's mouth, french chefs have researched, codified and perfected every basic techniques and knowledges, basically the whole basic, intermediate and avdvanced theory (leaving only what I'd call novelty stuff, aka invention/innovation, for the new chefs to figure out). Which means, as long as the cuisine paradigm remains mainly unchanged, meaning agriculture, eating conditions etc., the french cuisine has a firm place as the theoretical foundation for any aspiring great chef. Of course, some may become great without such training, but getting it at some point would (shall I even say, could) never hurt them.
Not to mention the french being able to talk for 3 hours straight of food DURING a freacking meal... French are even able to talk about a different meal they're eating just because they love food in general and how to cook it. Besides, in the south you also have a lot of seafood from the mediteranean sea that goes with olive oil and aromatic herbs like rosmarine or thyme
I mean, France was the cultural center of the world for a long time, people used to learn french as a second language instead of English, much of modern culture has some origin in France and every restaurant in the world today follows french technics, french organization etc etc, it's basically a residual of that, even if we don't care too much about France now
It hasn't;t worked with the Italians who look down on it for being fussy & messing about with ingredients to the point they're unrecognisable. Unlike the principle of Italian cooking.
As a french person and an amateur cook myself, I'd say there not one french cuisine. There what we call "haute cuisine", that is what you probably the idea you have in mind about fancy french foods. It's considered more innovative and it is made to be something special, something you could hardly make yourself in you home kitchen, it a experience in itself. Then, there is a more humble french cuisine, with many local speciality foods it is so extremely diverse you could think France is a very geographically large country. And obviously, you can have fusion between local specialty foods and haute cuisine.
Exactly! Each region of France has its specialties. In Aquitaine, the "cannelés" and the red wine "Bordeaux"; in Sarthe, the "rillettes"; in Bretagne, the "kouign amann", the cider and the crepes... I think that this is why french cuisine is so hard to picture for strangers. You should not look at it as a whole, but more as regional cuisines.
@@miloPRcohen Ahahahahah I know and this goes for the other regions as well. But I just can't list every dish in here.............. except, can I (we)?
But every big enough country has regional specialty foods, this is not exclusive to France. Countries as massive and geographically diverse as USA India China Mexico Japan Turkey have more recognizable individual foods than France does.
@@Amaling I think his point was to say that French food is not only about "haute cuisine" but more diverse in class, areas, style. Not to compare I don't really know what you mean by recognizable but it doesn't make much sense...
Your video was very well researched, as a Frenchman, who is quite used to poor videos about my country, I was quite surprised by how well you presented this part of history. Now I would make a small note. The English speaking world has a specific fascination for French cuisine that does not exists in the rest of Europe. It is true that the idea of restaurant was implemented across all Europe very fast, but the idea of going to a French restaurant in Italy or in Germany is pretty non existant. These countries have borrowed the concept of restaurant but they have adapted it to their own traditions. However, when it comes to fancy restaurants with very expensive menus, let's be honest, these restaurants are usually sold out months in advance, but very few French people ever go to them.
Ye usually most of the french if they go to a non-fast food restaurant, they eat simple dishes made from scratch with local products, nobody goes to those fancy restaurants on a whim.
I agree, it's a pretty cool video, and does represent of point of view that is familiar as a French person. One issue is the "national saga" that seeps in at times, for instance it wasn't overspending on cooking, painting and clothes that created the debt and taxation crisis that lead to the end of the monarchy, it was mostly excessive recourse to war that lead to a debt burden the fiscal structure (that basically exempted the richest from most taxes) wasn't made to handle, and a whole rigid system made its reformation very slow until it was too late
@@willmako5009 The end of Louis XIV reign was pretty chaotic as well. For instance, the fact that protestants had to flee the country en masse because of the revocation of the Nantes Edict had also a terrible impact on the economy. More than 1M highly skilled people leaving the country was an actual catastrophe.
Auguste Escoffier is the father of French "Michelin Star" cuisine. He standardized recipes and good practice in the kitchen along with the development of palace hotels at the end of the 19th century. It's thanks to him that French cuisine is recognized internationaly.
Escoffier's reference work _Le Guide Culinaire_ explains why French cuisine is so highly regarded, because Escoffier codified almost everything about proper food preparation and even helped define how a modern restaurant kitchen works.
Michelin Star based its measuring system on French cuisine. Anything non-French was automatically at a disadvantage. French cuisine perceived as "the best" has been in decline for several decades now. Even the top ranked restaurants around the world have fewer and fewer French restaurants every year. The presence of French restaurants outside of France has steadily declined. Asian, Italian, and even South American food has quickly displaced French cuisine as "the best".
If you wanna know why French food is fancy, just watch an episode of "Top chef France", or "Qui sera le prochain grand pâtissier". Of course, it is not what people commonly make at home, but it gives you an idea on how food can be pushed to the level of art. Culinary arts oscillate between military discipline and pure creative expression. From the product terroir to the choice of the perfect dish, nothing is left to chance, every detail matters.
Really interesting dive in the ins and outs of French cuisine. I would have to add something tho. The restaurant revolution happened a long time ago, but these first restaurants were NOTHING like ours today. These were brutal places, and chefs were considered pretty poorly even though the experiences were fancy. Not until one guy changed everything. Auguste Escoffier, a french chef, changed everything about the actual workings of restaurants. He standardized and "militarized" the kitchens of those establishments, and revolutionised how chef were viewed a century ago. He changed how kitchen were built, organized, he specialised the different jobs we have today, he made everything more safe/clean. His methods were SO GOOD that everyone wanted to learn from him. His restaurants/palaces in france and london were simply the best restaurants in the world. Every chef wanted to learn from french chefs because they were so efficient. Many chefs were sent all over the world to teach how to actually run a kitchen ( not cook, run a restaurant). THAT's the key difference between all the other cuisines : we just did it first. Also french cuisine is moslty defined by what we call terroir, which translates to the products of the land. Meaning, french cuisine is based on very specific products ( cheeses, weird meats, wines, alcohols...). The same way indian cuisine is defined more so by it's immense library of spices, and spice mixes, french cuisine is indifferentiable from it's produces.
Spot on. Terroir means that as a French person, when I visit another city I want to at a minimum taste 1. their wine 2. their cheese 3. their pastry, because they're so different from the ones a few kilometres away. And now I'm hungry :(
There were chefs who actually are the one who invented the French high cuisine : Vatel was the one who introduced the art of chosen the very very best of ingredients and particularly Antonin Carême who is the one who actually organized Kitchen as "brigade", the"militarized" organization and invented the "toque", the chef hat Escoffier was inspired by Carême who is the one who modernize French cuisine ( his life is truly impressive he was a genius), to create the Michelin star :) PS;
I think a lot of French people remember those family gathering during special days (Chrismas, New year, Easter...) You would stay seated from lunch to dinner, making it a single huge meal made of a succession of different dishes spaced out with Trou normand, coffee, smoking breaks and maybe a little walk outside to tamp all the previously ingested food to the bottom of your belly.
When I worked in Finance, my company would take us to eat in the French restaurants around my city. I obviously couldn’t afford it myself, but man it was delicious. We would always get the most expensive things in the menu. Fell in love with the cuisine.
Nice video, as a french cook i think u missed the point tho, the reason why french food has this aura is mainly due to escoffier and ritz, michelin guide and the " nouvelle cuisine" wave in the 70/80's
Like escoffier designed the way restaurants works today all over the globe ( western world mainly), and michelin guide helps to develop fine dining in france earlier than in other country i think
@@GarrusLeVrai75 that makes sense but your " regular " food is amazing as well. I lived there for 10 moths and I can't remember a bad meal ever. I'm Portuguese and as you may know we like our food.
Don't worry about french food continuing to live off and "compete" for the next decades. The reason we think more of french food as an idea than set recipes is because it is always in movement and has been since the Escoffier days. There are trends that come and go every year in French restaurants and its always pushing on innovation more than any other cuisines in the world to me. Sure there are classic dishes, but french people don't often go out in restaurants to eat a classic dish they can do at home. They want a "cuisine d'auteur", to eat the creativity, soul and story of the chef/restaurant they eat at
I am Cantonese from HK with some partial Kinh ancestry, so I'm quite familiar with the French culinary influence on my region. French culinary influence does provide us with delicious dishes like banh mi and flame on the iceberg so I'm thankful for that.
Also, I think the reason why when you think of Japanese or Italian food you get the dishes' names right away but not for French food is because we don't really have national dishes, it's very regional. Italy and Japan also have very regional food but there are a lot of dishes that are regional variations of the same dish while in France, you don't really have this, they might be some but it's not widespread. Also, French food names might not help to remember them easily. Furthermore, haute-cuisine is what people associate with French cuisine most of the time, so a lot of French restaurants abroad aren't affordable compared to Italian or Japanese, or Mexican. So you are less familiar with it if you aren't from France or living near the border.
Of course we have name of French dishes it's not just regional When I'm thinking about my country's food I'm thinking about Boeuf Bourguignon, Blanquette de veau, Pot au feu , grattin Dauphinois ...... there are a lot and of course they are affordable ;)
@@tarmil Touché ! XD That's at the same time pretty right and pretty wrong... yes we use a lot of regional names (more to call products than recipes but well, it happens also a bit) but each region and its specialties are part of our national food culture. There's some regional competition and chauvinism for sure, up to enjoy bashing each others... but in the end people from Bordeaux (that are very proud of their regional cuisine) recognize Lyon as one of the best place to eat, and vice versa, and all together we are pretty proud of this diversity and take it as our national patrimony.
Very good video, even as a Frenchman I learned some good stuff here. You could have mentioned Escoffier who had a major impact on French and modern food. Regarding French cuisine, I think there is not just one. - We have the dishes that are our daily consumption in France, with important regional specificities and that is almost endless. This is still the heart of our cuisine, but you have to live here to really feel it I think. - There is the gastronomy, which is a big part of cuisine in the end, and that is still very French based, and stil representing the sophisticated image France has. Michelin's guide, Gault et Millau remains the reference. - And there is also a blooming generation of creative French chefs, that is reinventing French cuisine, adding international influences to it, new techniques...You still learn how to cook like nowhere else in cities like Paris.
French cuisine will never disappear for we have what we call "art de vivre". It's not just about food. It's celebrating life as it was an art form in itself. THrough eating, drinking, going out, making love. And all of that we will never let go off
@@ДимаВеселов-в8и How can hedonism be pretentious when some people live all their life, ironically waiting for death, pridefully thinking that they are the chosen ones of an all mighty being? The only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.
@@PrimarchRoboleonFrenchyman hedonism itself isn't pretentious-the "art de vivre" is. I'm perfectly fine with people having fun and enjoying their lives, the problem with this french "art" is that they're trying to make more out of things than they actually are: "it's not JUST sex-it's stylishly exaggerated sex!", "it's not JUST food-it's stylishly presented food in a pompous place!" etc. creating almost magical flair around it, which works great for actual art and advertisement, but once you actually try it irl(you know, the VIVRE part of it), you don't get much more than your average experience, which WOULD'VE been totally fine if this stuff wasn't presenting itself like a promise of a concentrated blast of ecstasy, so in the end you get hit by a so high level of "instagram/anime vs reality" disappointment that it became a whole hecking psychological phenomenon called paris syndrome So yeah, "art de vivre" is a PRETENTIOUS hymn to hedonism because it PRETENDS that life is more than just a life. It doesn't resonate with more spiritual people because it doesn't make any accent on what they may find in tgis whole lifestyle, and it doesn't resonate with materialistic people because, once again, the experience of this life itself is subpar compared to what is promised
@@ДимаВеселов-в8и Did you really experience the french art de vivre before or are you just talking about what you imagine about it? It looks like a lot of projection. In France, when we talk about art de vivre or something aproching this concept, it is for a part about the quality (enjoying fine things) but also the simple fact of doing things. It is not about "stylishly exaggerated sex" (never heard this one before, well done) it is about not juging other for doing it. Encouraging people to enjoy life. If you want to have sex, have it, if you want to eat, eat, if you want to spend time with friends, let's go. The experience in itself is enough. You do not have to force it to have a good time with friends around drinks at a terrace. Art de vivre is about simple things being enjoyable, elegance being in them naturally and not living your life to work. You find it pretentious just because you misunderstand the real message, and also seems a little bit biased. If this message do not resonate with you, fine, you say you don't understand it and go your way.
@@clemclem4076 then, I've probably fucked up here. Having a good time enjoying your life and not judging others for doing the same is literally what any grown up internally balanced person would do and if you have a special term for it-it's perfectly fine. Turns out, I've had an issue not with art de vivre itself, but with an image among foreigners that is constructed via combination of art, stereotypes and advertisement
The bakeries, even if they're not dishes, will remain the main face of French food. There people do know the names, recognize the styles, they've even evolved and mixed with other cultures. Even in France it holds since not everyone is eating a fine restaurants all the time but breads, cheeses, and wines are still super common.
I do think quite a lot of French 'dishes' are rather well known though: coq au vin, confit de canard, paté/terrine/foie gras, bœuf bourguignon, cassoulet, onion soup to name a few. At least in the Netherlands and Belgium their existence is generally 'common knowledge' so to speak.
None of those foods you mentioned are even close to the popularity of something like Ramen or Burritos or Mapo Tofu or Hamburgers or Pizza or Kebabs. France has no "superstar food" so to say. And using Belgium where like half the population speaks French and yknow neighbours France, or Netherlands that is a moderately long train trip from France and neighbours two countries which share a border with France, is a bad example of the recognition French food has worldwide. I go to New Zealand or Iran or Brazil or whatever, people know the superstar foods. Can't say the same for confit the canard
I think the influx of American fast food also impact how french food is falling off, even in places like Paris. France has the 5th highest number of McDonald's restaurant. And since more people live alone now, why spend 3 hours making a boeuf bourguignon when you can just grab a burger for 3 euros.
When one reads your comment, one can really understand the joke of the ultraprocessed food industry. Why to make a 3-hours boeuf bourgignon when you can just grab a burger for 3EUR (more actually 5EUR)? Because it is CHEAPER, easier and better - you just chop the things, put in a pan, forget it and when it is ready, you freeze it. Tops 2EUR a portion if you put some rice with it.
You make a boeuf bourguignon to please other when you invite them. A meal isn't always a thing you eat on yourself , it's something you share with other . French people don't usually eat "entrée-plat-fromage-dessert" alone , it's something you eat with other . When i make food , it's because i like to do it , to take the time to make good food , to slow down a bit. But also because i wanna share with other , to make my friends , my family happy. To have a good time around a nice meal is one of the thing who make life worth it . Also with some cooking robot like vorvek , you can make a not so bad boeuf bourguignon for half an hour . (i will still not used it but for people who don't want to take the time , it's worth to know it)
I'm french and I currently live in Canada and bro... The food is soooo bad here. In fact, I'll move back to France next year. That's not the only reason but it's a big one. I thought when people were talking about french food being "better" they were talking about fancy restaurants (in which no average french eat btw) but no. Sandwiches from the grocery store taste better, meat taste better, candies taste better, even fast foods taste better (McDonald's is fancy in France. We have new burgers every month, like really new. Not the big mac with a different sauce. And every ingredient is local). Here in Quebec you eat the same thing over and over at restaurants. You choose between pizza, burger, poutine, fried chicken... Over... and over... In France you can choose 5 random restaurants and none of them will make the same food. And most likely every one of them will be good. Because there is so much competition you cannot open a medium or bad restaurant. And the price of a restaurant in France is like half of the price of the canadian ones. When I eat food in Canada I feel like there are so many more uneeded calories for no added flavor. Pizzas are just thick and they throw every bad quality (because it's cheaper) ingredient they can on it. Ham is plasticy and water is injected in it. I didn't like the stereotype about french food because I thought people were talking about fancy food but no. Even if you buy a meal to heat up in the microwave at the grocery store it'll taste good.
I don't know, try eating somewhere else than fast food joints! I'm from Québec and there are restaurants where you can eat something else than pizza, burgers or poutine.
Hello, I am French and I really liked your analysis. Today in France, there is such an ethnic mix that it enriches this cuisine even more. We cook the ingredients in really different ways (in the oven, in the pan, simmered...) and we use a lot of spices, it's a treat. Since the containment of the C.O.V. i.d many people in France have relearned to grow vegetables at home and cook a lot more. We go to restaurants a lot less.
As a French person, I wanted to thank you for making this video ! I knew most of it but I also learned new things about my country so thank you ! And yeah, French cuisine is more of a concept and a way of crating dishes. When you go to a good restaurant, most dishes don't have a "proper" or a signature name. Every chef can create dishes with their own touch, and I think this is why we consider it as art. Also, it might be the case for tourist but us French people don't go to restaurants to "appear sophisticated" or something, we really go there for the food haha
Traditionally the entrée course was exactly what you suggested that it is: a starter course. In France this course might be, for example, a salad, soup, escargots, or pate with small vegetables. The entrée then leads to the plat principal (main dish) and this is where you find the really substantial dish organized around roast meat, poultry, fish. As an American, I think that we imported the term entrée a bit outside of its context. In other words, I do not think that there is a strong food culture tradition in the USA of serving a meal in a standardized and sequential series of distinct and different dishes, one at a time, like acts in a play. As an American who has lived in several European countries (and have now been living in Italy for the better part of a decade) I can attest to the absolute centrality of a structured and historic food culture that is an important part of European culture in general. Great video!
I think it is also important to say, that french cuisine emphasizes nowadays more it’s rich regional cuisines. France has basicaly every european climate, from oceanic to mediteranean to continental_by this they also have very different regional cuisnes.
From a French man : great video, you put a lot of work into it that's for sure. But the ending got me triggered haha. Comparing French food to Mexican food was kind of cute. The thing is, people don't see "French food" as one dish like we think of Italian cuisine as pizza and pasta, because French food is so diverse and there are so many dishes that vary depending on the region you are in, that it's hard to pin what is the actual star dish. Having grown in France and traveled a lot, I have come to realize that what makes French food "fancy" is the standing you get at the the restaurant. You are not just a customer, you are there to have a great time. You get free bread, free water, a great choice of wine of all prices and over the top dishes. The food is also of high quality. I really don't think it has fallen of any standard. Just avoid touristic places that only sells "steak frites". I actually listed all French dishes I could think of : Socca de Nice Pissaladière Buche de Noël Quenelles et sauce nantua Nougat Piperade Tiele setoise Oeuf moeurette Camembert (truffe, au calvados) Truffe Axoa Tian courgettes Brandade de morue Escargots Moule frite Crêpes de Bretagne Andouillette Kouign Aman Le Welsh Endives au jambon Chipolata / merguez Boudin blanc / noir Ratatouille Tapenade (anchoiade) Bouillabaisse (soupe de poisson) Pot au feu La quiche Lorraine Steak tartare Aligot Gratin dauphinois Les crozets Le foie gras Cassoulet La carbonnade flamande La raclette La fondue (savoyarde, bourguignonne) La tartiflette Hachis Parmentier Choucroute La soupe à l'oignon Omelette sablaise Tarte tatin La galette des rois Macarons Crème brûlée Ile flotante Le vin (blanc, rouge, rose, gris, jaune) Le kir Le pastis Saint Christain Rillettes Profiteroles Le pâté en croute (Pâté Lorrain) Bœuf bourgignon / coq au vin Le cannelé Oeuf en gelée Paris Brest Éclair Madeleines Gâteau au fromage du Poitou Magret de canard (Omelette au canard) Tomates farcies Chaperon Soupe au pistou Blanquette de veau Coquille Saint Jacques Bouche à la reine Saucisson Mirabelle Cuisine aux marrons (crème de marrons, sauce au marrons...) Baeckeoffe Cordon bleu Les cressins Les gougères Les fouées Fougasses Rillauds Fouace vendéen Broyé poitevin Un douillon Steak Rossigny Truffade auvergnate
@theholypopechodeii4367 mexican cuisine is literally 50 shades of tacos and tequila. They literally put cheese on a tacos and call it a different dish 😂 tacos is essentially sandwich.
Speaking only about pasta, in Italy we have more than 450 types of pasta and thousands of recipes . Only for pasta. Speaking about risotto, is the same. The same is about gelato, fish, meats, salamis, panini, vegetables and side dishes, minestre, frittate, soups, game, seafood, desserts etc. Even for coffee and liqueurs. For each one of these foods every region in Italy has hundreds and hundreds of different recipes. And the regions in Italy are 20. We can also say that even every family has for each of these categories of food at least their own exclusive recipe that is handed down from mother to daughter and each one is worthy of a restaurant. You can go on and on for ages.
I'm just trying to understand how "Le Welsh" can be claimed as a French dish when it's just the French name for Welsh Rarebit, which is naturally from Wales...
As a French guy living abroad and being constantly asked "what are typical French dishes?" all the time, I found myself unable to answer this question and the subsequent "why is that so?". This video was very interesting to reflect a bit on my own food culture! :)
@@calypsorowe4546le frérot a oublié la choucroute , la tielle sétoise , le pot-au-feu , le croque monsieur , le cordon bleu , la blanquette de veau , le bœuf bourgignon , la salade nicoise , le hachis parmentier , tous les gratins possible ou réalisables , le pain perdu , le steak frites , l'omelette , le canard à l'orange etc...😂
I think one of the reasons French food is so hard to actually pinpoint is because of the huge variety of dishes. "Fries and steak", "soupe à l'oignon", "crème brulé" and such amount for 10% of a French menu. You will find them on all menus, all over France. The 90% left are local dishes or creations by the chef, specific to the restaurant and/or the region. "Axoa", "quenelles", "piperade", "fougasse", "welsh", "bakehoff"... you've probably never heard of these dishes because you won't find them in a "French restaurant in Paris", you'll find them in the regions they originate from, or specialized restaurants. They're all equally delicious but they're so different from each others that they might as well come from totally different parts of the world. Cassoulet is a prime example. It originates from the south west of the country and isn't readily available in common parisian restaurants, so a tourist could come and visit Paris and never ever figure out this dish exists. Guess what happens when press articles started talking about it in the US? It became an instant trend.
As a French person, I was really pleased by the amount of work and research you put into this video. And I've learned many things ! Thank you, keep up the great work.
France still has a very different style of cooking and dishes from region to region. I'm from a region in the North-West and in the regions next to me (Paris and the North of France) the cooking is different. You can see it mostly through the way our grandparents cook but there are some food items that are impossible to find outside of their region and even in national supermarkets, the items vary from a region to the other. I just came back from South-West France and it was so funny to go grocery shopping and see all the differences. It truly felt like I was in an other country the entire time.
Thanks for the video. But you miss 50% of French cuisine. The cuisine from the farmers (France is not only Paris, but a lot of terroirs), local dishes very famous, the quality of the products (bread, cheese, wine, charcuterie etc). And of course the art of the desserts, in another galaxy
french food is considered fancy because most dedicated french restaurants are higher end. in america literally everywhere has a neighborhood pizza place that is not that expensive. usually a french restaurant is considered fine dining due to the complexity of preparing some dishes.
Very nice video. As a french who use to live some years outside I saw the perception of french food can differs from inside reality of what and how people eat in France. There is the fancy "parisian chef" food wich usualy is the "image" of french food but there is the average "every day" restaurants, the multiple local/traditionnals foods, the variety is so important that foods from certains regions can be seen as another country's food. South, east, north, west, center, oversea got completly different food production it's amazing, need more than one life to try everything
Am I the only who can actually name french dishes? Ratatouille, Crêpes, Quiche, Foie gras, Onion soup, Soufflé, Tartiflette, Cassoulet, Chicken Cordon Bleu, Coq au vin, Beouf Bourguinon, Escargot....I mean these are super well known dishes, some of which have become mainstream elswhere (like crepes and quiche). Like there are tons of well known french dishes lol
Average person can't name any French dish but nearly everyone knows Pizza, Pasta and Sushi. I can only name Ratatouille because of Pixar movie :D. so your knowledge of French Cuisine is well above average.
Its a misconception actually. The myth of the belgian origin was revisited, and nowadays historians (including Belgian historians) agreed on the French, and even Parisian origin of the french fries. But Belgium became associated with the dish for obvious reasons now
I think people that are not from France struggle to understand how our cuisine works. Contrary to most countries we don’t really have like « Headline dishes » such as pizza, hamburgers etc… Of course we have certain recipes that are well known in France, but if you go to a real french restaurant you won’t even find those. It’s because our cuisine is made of ingredients and technics. I work in a classy French restaurant (but no Michelin star), and all the dishes are called *the main ingredient* followed by *how it’s prepared* and in description what comes with it, from a restaurant to another you will normally never have the same menu (unless you go to a place that serves traditional French food that people eat at home). That’s real French cuisine, when we go to a restaurant we want to discover new tastes and not just feed ourselves. I don’t like to say that but I think that especially Americans judge a cuisine by it’s main dishes. Most Americans say that Italian cuisine is the best, but when you think about it, most of the time it’s pizza or pasta and it’s basique, you’ve got a base on which you add ingredients and bam you have a new dish with a name (seems like you love to put a name on stuff). French cuisine is very complex and hard to explain even for me, and must be even harder to interpret by a stranger. But anyway nice video!
An interesting approach. However, like all great food cultures, Italian, Indian Chinese, Thai etc, French food is regional. That is how it is defined. And how it is experienced. What we may be talking about is Haute Cuisine. Great video.
I’m french and asked myself this and documented myself and got to the same conclusion. What france invented is the modern way of eating. Restaurants, food standards, but also the entrance/main/dessert sequence that didn’t exist at the time. So we invented an idea of eating, and we are still famous for that, which at the end, makes total sense. Everyday french food isn’t sophisticated at all for ghe most part. But the quality of the ingredients and the standards are what makes it french. Hope that makes sense ;-)
As a French person, I would like to add that people of France generaly do massive difference between what is call "haute cuisine": which is the fancy food served in expensive restaurant to impress posh tourists and another type of cuisine, more traditional, that you can eat at home or in a bistro. There is also a massive difference between dishes from one region to another: this is why it's so hard to visualise one single plate.
Bro, your level of information and intellectual fascinate me a lot. A person who was cultivated by Le Cordon Bleu institution and trained well by this french chefs and tradition has open my mind about how the history and cooking and art and etc combine into this one finesse nation. Thank you for this content dude. God bless you for existing in this world. F the doubters, haters or losers and keep giving us all this beautiful information and knowledge. Godspeed. Merci beaucoup mon ami. C'est la vie. Cheers. All the best
English uses French words like Restaurant, Menu, and many others because, in 1066, William conquered England and forever altered the course of the language.
@grand news true... but the precedent had been set for English to do so. They weren't inventing new Anglo words but continously adopting Latin or French terms.
True for the types of meat (boeuf became beef, porc became pork, venaison became venison), but everything associated with modern dining business is derivated from 19th century's vocabulary.
The critical part here is that french food came from royal food and the standard to which they were set, other countries food generaly came from the popular dishes and specialties lower classes had, they shine more in their simplicity (Italian cuisine comes to mind for me, with many dishes with fewer ingredients). French food is maybe the only one that hasn't really street food representations. One other thing you can observe is that french cuisines does have their typical dishes, Italy's pizzas, Japan's sushis, but their just regionnal ones. Burgundy has its escargots, wine and mustard (Dijon), Brittany crepes and cider, Normandy butter and camembert, etc... Must of these while regularly revisited and used by big chefs aren't these highly sophisticated dishes we see in restaurants but were originaly popular meals eaten by everyday people.
The Burgandian rule over parts of France and the Low Lands, about 3 centuries before Louis XIV, already had a reputation for enjoying food and drinks. In Burgundy you feel that connection to the riches the land produces more, but also with the joie de vivre, a general attitude towards life.
French food is comfy food. Mais pour les américains j’imagine que c’est sophistiqué parce qu’en fait, vous pensez à la fine cuisine et non aux plats servis dans les bistrots.
Speaking of soft power, in the Elysée palace, the french president residence, cuisine is considered a diplomatic weapon. Inviting a foreign representative to a succulent meal in order to better the negociations is a real thing. Anyways, great video !
Mon ami, I am impressed by the accurate knowledge you are sharing. So bravo! However, I just want to point out that it is not because you don’t know any of the french main dishes that french cuisine is unidentified or just a ‘feeling’ for everyone. French cuisine has the particularity to be either popular or elitist (haute gastronomie). Regarding the popular part, maybe you eat french fries, omelet, crepe, soufflé, bechamel, pistou, tartar, mashed potatoes, croque monsieur and french cheese on a daily basis. On the other side, the french cuisine has created the main technics to make sauce, cook a meat, mijoté, sauté etc and all these technics are used for the popular and elitist french cuisine. The difference with French and others cuisine such as the Italian one, is that France does not overpromote its cuisine. French culture usually focus on quality than quantity. However, yes french cuisine is less affordable compared to other populate cuisine (chinese, italian, mexican…) because it is more technical and requires more expensive ingredients.
I think you missed a trick by not incorporating a section on the difference between the classic haute cuisine and the nouvelle cuisine that is currently much more associated with fancy restaurants; plates with very little food on them, but arranged elegantly and artfully. That said, I enjoyed the video and think you did a very good job at presenting French food both respectfully and honestly - because it IS, after all, just a national cuisine... I love it, but nobody can convince me that it's inherently better than, say, Japanese or Moroccan or Italian cooking. (Also, I share your bewilderment at the changed meaning of "entrée" in the US. Weird stuff happens in languages, and that's not just in US English.)
My hypothesis why French cuisine is romanticized is because of English colonialism. Why? Many French chefs made their way to England, some as cooks for gentry and nobility, and some in high profile hotels like August Escoffier at the Savoy. And when England decided to conquer the world, they brought French food with them, as the more cultured version of European cuisine (at least compared to English food).
That has an impact but your forgetting that France it self was an empire that conquered places worldwide and that the French language is used as medium in many countries in Africa!
@@user-dz4eb5rb3g idk how much that actually has an impact since very few of Frances colonies imported her cuisine In a meaningful way. Infact they introduced new dishes to France. The vast majority of internationally known french dishes were ones that Anglo nobility hyped up the rest is due to the recent globalism he mentioned.
@@kaindrg could be a part of the truth, but it’s a part. What I mean is that there are other countries than England who contributed to this. Since the 17th century French has been thé language of the upper class families of Europe. Even the Russian royal family spoke French more than they spoke Russian. And Britain was not the only European country who conquered parts of the world since that period. France refined the art of cuisine and made it to what it is today. Its like how we use Italian terms for music theory, because they refined the systematic thought of music; in the same way the French did with the art of cuisine.
For the record, I like cassoulet, head cheese and the classic non-confit byaldi rattatouille. Neither are considered high end. But they are quite cozy choices.
Very interesting takes. Thank you for this video. I'm french, did a culinary school and i love to cook. Another reason why it is complicated to associate french food with an actual dish is also because of the diversity of our food. It is deeply connected to the fact than in a relatively small country we have a lot of different climate and landscape (sea, mountain, cold and wet, warm and dry...). Italian food is connected to some few ingredients (tomato, eggplant, basil...) some country have also a clear national dish or spice... which help picturing a specific dish. And by the way, in ratatouille, the rat is not making a ratatouille 😅
I didn't know half of this, thank you ! it made me sad knowing people from abroad would order Ratatouille just for the movie, Ratatouille is literally my favorite dish !! Everyone should try Ratatouille with rice, this is comfort food😋🥰 Adding my little contribution : i think italian and austrian influences (for the fancy pastries) were also decisive in the process of making french cuisine appear more sophisticated than it is. Somehow this video helped me understand what is so suffocating living in France. It's easy to feel alienated in this country comparing what we see of our culture in the medias where luxury lifestyle is overrepresented and what it is in reality (even if the ordinary cuisine is excellent in my books, grandma's cuisine in particular😋). This reputation has a lot of consequences on the lower class : - in some places, there are restaurants aiming at middle/high class and tourists everywhere but barely no "ordinaries" for working people (that we call "Brasseries"), they are often overcrowded, when not completely replaced by fast food. The fact that business owners are heavily taxed doesn't help. - food that was affordable and considered food for the poor (like sea fish, wine, some kind of mushrooms, and recently cow meat) are now gatekeeped by the wealthiest. - when products are lacking, they are sold in priority to restaurants and we have nothing left. To have good products at the same prices as your grandparents had them, like wine, you have to know someone who sells his productions without the State knowing, as most of the good productions are sold abroad making prices skyrocket when demand is higher than supply. This is too much.
Why would you feel sad about people getting interested in your favorite dish cause of a movie. I'm glad and I don't mind people getting interested in good things and my interests from entertainment. Much of what people learn is through entertainment. You can't fault people for not knowing things or uncommon things, like your favorite dish. At least French is more famous in media then other cultures, like Vietnamese. I actually hope media would show more things like lesser known cultures. Foods that were once for the poor have become expensive and fancy luxuries around the world too. Not just France.
Exactly. Like creme brulée is generaly a must have dessert or pot-au-feu/boeuf bourguignon/blanquette de veau are some well know meal (at least in france) . The thing is , like in other country where food are important (italy , japan , turkey , etc.. ) , each region in these country have their own food , and they are proud of it. I was amaze when i visit hamburg (amazing place) that they didn't have one dish related to the city itself. I really try to find one but nothing was here The best i find was some speciality from northen germany (a rosbif with potatoes, something nearly every french would associated with the brits ). For a city of that size (1.85 millions people!) , it's impossible to find that in france (or other country with a food culture like italy , japan , etc.. ).
FYI, Safran was a local spice at the time. Not only is Safran originating from Europe, but Boynes (France) was safran's world's capital city from the 16th through the 19th century.
I went to all over France. I find even in France french restaurants mostly be found near tourist traps. In french local neighborhoods, most restaurants are pizza, burger and Asian food
Hello as a french person i would say that i really loved your video. The evolution of the cuisine throught time was hightly onfluence by the monachy, but there was a major influencer at the end of the 19 th centuary and the beguining of the 20 th centuary that made the french cuisine we know. His name was Auguste Escoffier (1846- 1935). He was a genius regarding the promotion of french cuisine around the world. He also revolutionized the way of cooking, and the organization in the kitchen( basically it is still teached now in cullinary school). There is so much to say about him, that it would take to much space.
I wonder if there's not some connection to the Norman invasion of England in the 11th century. For hundreds of years after that, the entire English court was French, and everything French was considered high class as a result.
Good video, but the "La liberté guidant le peuple" painting that you use at 8:44 is actually about the 1830 revolution, not the one in 1789. Other than that, good job!
Well made video. As an expat, I find sad that I can't find everyday french dishes at normal prices in restaurants :( I agree with how it's badly represented for foreigners, especially for cheeses. Everyone knows of mozzarela, gouda or cheddar, and the country they represent, but they have no ideas about french cheeses (maybe brie ? but not as a symbol) even though we have more than 500 kinds... Maybe too much choices for fast food culture dominating the world...
Le dernier classement des fromages a eté fait par un organisme américain . Ils ont placé un ou deux de nos fromages (le comté et le bleu) mais loin des premières places. On rappelle que les américains n'ont pas le droit d'exporter des produits laitiers crus non pasteurisés . Et 3/4 de nos fromages sont crus 🫠🫠 jdis ça jdis rien ☠️
@@Lostouille Dans certains etats on peut acheter du formage non pasteurisé. On peut trouver du comté dans les traders joe par exemple. Par contre c'est que du 6 mois d'affinage... Mais vraiment les américains ne connaissent pas.
@@RationalTrade oui , d'ailleurs ils commencent un peu à connaître le bleu et justement ils kiffent celui là..alors imagine le St Félicien , le Rocamadour et autre.. 🙂🙃🙂🙃
@@Lostouille Il a des artisans locaux qui font des st marcelins. C'est pas mal du tout, par contre c'est pasteurisé, donc ca manque de profondeur de gout. Et c'est pas a la portée de toutes les bourses ^^. 9$ pour 150g environ. Les bleux y en a plusieurs mais comparé a du roquefort c'est vraiment pas fort le gout.
Hello, I'm French, used to be a cook and I love this episode that refresh my memory from culinary school. And like you, I have no idea why you turn "entrée" the salad we eat before main dish, into main dish. It can be from the influence of Julia Child or because when famous chefs start the 15 course dishs they call entrée the fish or the brisket.
There must be about 200 + years of making food ...first by Kings and their cooks (Vatel is a well known cook..) and then traditions by royals who made experiences and keeping diversity alive...Its the same in Italy and then all the Asian countries who have century old cuisines...they seem to be the best !!
French people here. Absolutely loved this video, great research work and great thinking for the future of french food. I don't know if it will fall off sooner or later, nothing is eternal after all, but clearly we have more concurrence now with italian, korean, mexican or even chinese cuisine. Très bonne vidéo :)
They had a lot of different courses to a banquet. A lot. And Entree wasn’t the first, I think it actually came at the transition to the main part of the meal. Then we simplified to a handful of courses & dropped a lot of the names. Linguistically it seems more obvious to use entree for the appetizers, but in practice it was just a name for one of the courses at or just before the beginning of the main part of the meal. So my theory: when simplifying a) they just treated them as names and somebody liked entree and kept the name and perhaps also b) it’s not as “wrong” as it seems when we assume entry means the very beginning.
This video is a good, but you didn't mention the Haute Cuisine and especially Auguste Escoffier. Which makes this video missing some information. The portion pertaining to Louis XIV and his history was somewhat dragged out, and could have been condensed. Despite this, the premise was clear. Also, your style reminds me of Johnny Harris videos, keep it up!
Not all French food is fancy. Everyday food in France, eaten by the average Frenchman and Frenchwoman, can be very different from what's served in over-hyped and over-priced so-called French restaurants, which are essentially bent on selling 'edible illusions' for the 'blasé' ones or for gullible tourists.
Too bad you didn't mention Auguste Esciffier, who turned past restaurant into today high end restaurant. He is the one who invented the idea of "brigade" for example
You forget to mention the most important of all the one who made the french cuisine the standard and also the organization of the kitchen. M. Escoffier is the one who invented the worldwide organisation of the kitchen. And this will answer your question of why you use french word in American restaurants it s because of" the methode of Ritz Escoffier" ritz was an English who set up the standard for palace and Escoffier the standards for kitchen and restaurant
Very well researched and well done video! Congratulations I really enjoyed it. The fascination you mention, however, is mostly Anglo-American. I've travelled extensively in Europe and can confirm that in most European countries French restaurants are just one option among many which are actually often more popular, especially Italian, Turkish, Arabic or Asian restaurants, mainly because indeed French food is usually not quick nor easy to understand (unless you go to a brasserie, but that's already too specific for non-Francophones). That doesn't mean that the fixed idea about French food 'fanciness' is not shared across Europe, it is. It's just that most countries in Europe have learned to value their own culinary traditions, or others in the world that they may have been more exposed to, are easier to communicate or feel more exotic (take Indonesian food in the Netherlands for instance). I confirm that the only European country I can think of with a quasi-cliché approach to French restaurants is the UK-London more specifically.
You put into words something I feel as a Brazilian living in France. I'm constantly ordering Chinese food or Italian food, but every time I feel like eating French food I end up not doing so because there is no such a thing. With other restaurants, no matter which one I pick, I have an idea of what I'll get, but every French restaurant is just completely different from each other, so I don't know what to expect. It's great when you want to explore, but not so great when you are just looking for something more specific, known, sort of like a comfort food. You often don't get disappointed, but you may as well find yourself eating something delicious but which was not what you were looking for/craving.
As a french, I can't think about one french dish, but it's mostly each region with it's own specialities, I can think about the fondue and the raclette in the Alpes, the cassoulet and the foie gras in the south west, a lots of charcuterie cooked with vine or bread around Lyon, light Mediterranean food in the south east with a lots of vegetables and seafood, choucroute and flamenkuche in the north... plus all the cheese 😁 I'm personally not a fan of the fancy gastronomical food, I'm more about local food
I am french and really liked the video, You wrote it to be really intresting, I even learned about my own country history. Thank you for this video dude. Also to the question "how many time this idea will reamin ?", I think that even if french food is becoming kind of rare in our restaurants, the true speciality will reamin in the menues as a part of our history, and theses dishes are still really good. To all the people that will come in France one day, please try the speciality of france and discover this culture of simplicity, I promise that you won't regret it ( exept for snail dudes like wtf why are you eating that, only the butter is good in it)
Hi from France :) French cuisine will keep being an experience full of concepts, or an idea if you will, despite being "only" food, because its concepts are based on food. All starts by what we call the terroir, meaning the taste of the environment and the traditions where raw materials are produced. We know the difference between a chicken traditionally farmed in Loué, or Bresse, and an other one mass produced in a factory cuted from the environment. That's why so many of our products are called using small areas names. Then the amount of terroirs is through the roof, giving an insane amount of variety. Best examples are surely wines and cheeses. Starting with same raw materials (cabernet grapes, cow milk etc) terroirs provide hundreds of very distinct products. In a way we don't have wine, we got Bordeaux, Graves, Saint Emilion, Beaujolais... we don't have cheese, we got Camembert, Roquefort, Bethmale... French cuisine is just the tip of the iceberg as it only gives more added quality value to produces that are already great by themselves and can be enjoyed without extra work. Some bread, cheese and delicatessen, some wine, and there you go... it's not high end cuisine, but it's already a very French and delicious meal you wont find anywhere else. Also French cuisine is a lot about fusion. France is already a major crossroad in Europe with lot of very different influences, but we also have a lot of history and inspiration from many other parts of the world that used to be French (Maghreb, Africa, Asia...) or are still French (Caribean islands, Guyana, Polynesian Islands...). One of the most popular meal in France is Couscous... we absorb in our cuisine, and in our cultural habits, whatever meal we find great, and most of us are very curious about foreign food. Using original terms we care about "twists" and "comfort food" because we also like American food, we talk about "umami" because we are found of Japonese food. We are very porous to foreign food and fast to adapt it to make it our own. But if you understand food by "low quality industrial stuffs that can be produced anywhere", it doesn't change much : we are full of that, we mainly eat that for decades, and French cuisine hasn't died. The only danger for French food is climate change, as it modifies a lot our terroirs. But I feel we'll keep making French food no matter what, because in the end it is all about adaptation.
Im not french but for me french food is one of the most exotic in Europe and the least boring because its usage of ingredients and combination of flavours that almost don't exist in Europe. For exemple, most european countries use very commun ingredients. If you compare a stew with potatoes and meat with a duck confit and dried prunes with berry sauce, the second has that fancy vibe to eat. Some of these unique dishes are: Sweet potatoes Parmentier with duck confit. Walnut and pears salad with vinaigrette. Chickpeas stuffed chicken with bell peppers sauce. Fish stew with saffron and chillies flakes sauce.
I like most of your video. Only thing I would add is that french people make distinction between "Traditional" or everyday cuisine and what we call haute cuisine or haute gastronomie. Not the same
You missed an important part : the work of Auguste Escoffier, in the 19th century, who built the modern French cuisine and added a new depth of codification. It also enabled a professionalisation of the job that now leads to basics that are learned all around the world (especially when it comes to sauces). French cuisine also has such a status because it's a cultural thing that is embroided in our norms and values. You mentionned that a few people know what a ratatouille is, but if you ask a French kid, he will for sure, as for dozens and dozens of other dishes, or ingredients. We tend to ritualize the process of eating, taking our time, making the effort to have a starter and a main dish (at least for those who can afford), it is simpler when you eat alone at home, but it comes back almost automatically when you invite guests. Finally, you didn't mention something : France is geographically gifted, we have an agricultural powerhouse with top quality products, and for all sorts of products (meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, you name it), which makes French food of a better inate standard.
It's funny, being from Portugal I've never found French food to be fancy. That's not to say that it isn't sophisticated or that it had no influence over here, but I don't think I've ever come across a French restaurant over here (that I remember).
@@albertolaboria5866our food is not as much different as yours. It's just Italy being the face of mediterrannean food and they based their cuisine on 3 ingredients (pasta/tomato/olive oil). We are just more diverse than that , I think we (the latin and romance countries) should not be copy cat of each other in term of cooking 🤷🏻♀️
Because in this culture food is pleasure and a social indulgence. Theres psychology behind how this culture eats and to Americans its an incomprehensible concept
In Asia there is no French restaurant that’s not labeled “fancy”. Some of them just serve steamed chicken and vegetables plated nicely. I don’t think that’s French food
Sorry but you missed the point, Escoffier was the man who really changed French cuisine. But thank you for this lovely video about my country, hoping to see you soon in France. 😀
World have forgotten French cuisine because of how diverse it is. From cassoulet to choucroute, stopping by bouillabaisse. You can have a lot of foods here.
It's not only about the image or the dishes, it's about the general empathis French people put on food. As a a guy who lives in Germany and quite often go to France to visit my mother's family i am always astonished about being able to spend 3 hours just at lunch or having entire conversation about food how you'd talk about football or politics in other countries.
As long as this approach to food remains im not worried about French food. French people have kinda adopted to the stereotype of French food being good and feel proud about it. So they continue to live this food culture.
The video in general is quite good. But you missed the entire story about escoffier revolutionizing cuisine. Also in my opinion French food cuisine greatly benefits from France's geography which combines a lot of different climates in little space. You have the atlantic with it's seafood, the south with olive oil and herbs which tends towards italian food, the east with heavy dishes similar to germanic cuisine...combine this with the influx of new food from north africa and vietnam and you get a great mix
I agree very much with your last point. In the end I would however still associate French cuisine more with the typical butter/deep tastes (like Belgian cuisine) than with olive oil/light tastes (like Italian cuisine)
Another thing to add to your "I'm not worried about french food" point. While most top 10 ranking of restaurant, whatever their methodology, do not contain lots of french one anymore, the vast majority of their chef have been trained in france. While our food is not as popular as italian's for example (litterally popular, as known, liked and consumed regularly by the people), we still have the most significant food soft power. I'm confident we'll continue to inovate, and create both the best and worst food at the same time
@@palmitoVBR And many if not most renowned Michelin star restaurants outside of France claim to have a French kitchen
@@parkergiele Indeed, it was french chefs that codified the high-end restaurant workings of a cuisine (and still continue to reinforce and innovate in this field), making it a perfect clockwork machine, and frankly I don't see any other possible model that could surpass it in terms of efficiency or quality of the work.
French gastronomy is not only the art of cuisine, it's the art of the table. From the farmer's market to the dish cleaning station going through the burning stove and the client's mouth, french chefs have researched, codified and perfected every basic techniques and knowledges, basically the whole basic, intermediate and avdvanced theory (leaving only what I'd call novelty stuff, aka invention/innovation, for the new chefs to figure out). Which means, as long as the cuisine paradigm remains mainly unchanged, meaning agriculture, eating conditions etc., the french cuisine has a firm place as the theoretical foundation for any aspiring great chef. Of course, some may become great without such training, but getting it at some point would (shall I even say, could) never hurt them.
Not to mention the french being able to talk for 3 hours straight of food DURING a freacking meal... French are even able to talk about a different meal they're eating just because they love food in general and how to cook it.
Besides, in the south you also have a lot of seafood from the mediteranean sea that goes with olive oil and aromatic herbs like rosmarine or thyme
France must have to best PR in history to have everything associated with them be seen as high status and sophisticated.
I mean, France was the cultural center of the world for a long time, people used to learn french as a second language instead of English, much of modern culture has some origin in France and every restaurant in the world today follows french technics, french organization etc etc, it's basically a residual of that, even if we don't care too much about France now
It hasn't;t worked with the Italians who look down on it for being fussy & messing about with ingredients to the point they're unrecognisable. Unlike the principle of Italian cooking.
It wasn't PR though, it was literally being the US of old, aka the most economically, militarily, and culturally powerful country in the world.
It's not just PR, it's one of the places where the most effort has been put into making nice things nicer..
Compared to the English. Yes they are.
As a french person and an amateur cook myself, I'd say there not one french cuisine. There what we call "haute cuisine", that is what you probably the idea you have in mind about fancy french foods. It's considered more innovative and it is made to be something special, something you could hardly make yourself in you home kitchen, it a experience in itself. Then, there is a more humble french cuisine, with many local speciality foods it is so extremely diverse you could think France is a very geographically large country. And obviously, you can have fusion between local specialty foods and haute cuisine.
Exactly! Each region of France has its specialties. In Aquitaine, the "cannelés" and the red wine "Bordeaux"; in Sarthe, the "rillettes"; in Bretagne, the "kouign amann", the cider and the crepes... I think that this is why french cuisine is so hard to picture for strangers. You should not look at it as a whole, but more as regional cuisines.
@@brize3452 Oh please New Aquitaine doesn't have JUST that!
@@miloPRcohen Ahahahahah I know and this goes for the other regions as well. But I just can't list every dish in here.............. except, can I (we)?
But every big enough country has regional specialty foods, this is not exclusive to France. Countries as massive and geographically diverse as USA India China Mexico Japan Turkey have more recognizable individual foods than France does.
@@Amaling I think his point was to say that French food is not only about "haute cuisine" but more diverse in class, areas, style. Not to compare
I don't really know what you mean by recognizable but it doesn't make much sense...
Your video was very well researched, as a Frenchman, who is quite used to poor videos about my country, I was quite surprised by how well you presented this part of history. Now I would make a small note. The English speaking world has a specific fascination for French cuisine that does not exists in the rest of Europe. It is true that the idea of restaurant was implemented across all Europe very fast, but the idea of going to a French restaurant in Italy or in Germany is pretty non existant. These countries have borrowed the concept of restaurant but they have adapted it to their own traditions.
However, when it comes to fancy restaurants with very expensive menus, let's be honest, these restaurants are usually sold out months in advance, but very few French people ever go to them.
Same
Agreed
Ye usually most of the french if they go to a non-fast food restaurant, they eat simple dishes made from scratch with local products, nobody goes to those fancy restaurants on a whim.
I agree, it's a pretty cool video, and does represent of point of view that is familiar as a French person.
One issue is the "national saga" that seeps in at times, for instance it wasn't overspending on cooking, painting and clothes that created the debt and taxation crisis that lead to the end of the monarchy, it was mostly excessive recourse to war that lead to a debt burden the fiscal structure (that basically exempted the richest from most taxes) wasn't made to handle, and a whole rigid system made its reformation very slow until it was too late
@@willmako5009 The end of Louis XIV reign was pretty chaotic as well. For instance, the fact that protestants had to flee the country en masse because of the revocation of the Nantes Edict had also a terrible impact on the economy. More than 1M highly skilled people leaving the country was an actual catastrophe.
Auguste Escoffier is the father of French "Michelin Star" cuisine. He standardized recipes and good practice in the kitchen along with the development of palace hotels at the end of the 19th century. It's thanks to him that French cuisine is recognized internationaly.
Escoffier's reference work _Le Guide Culinaire_ explains why French cuisine is so highly regarded, because Escoffier codified almost everything about proper food preparation and even helped define how a modern restaurant kitchen works.
Michelin Star based its measuring system on French cuisine. Anything non-French was automatically at a disadvantage. French cuisine perceived as "the best" has been in decline for several decades now. Even the top ranked restaurants around the world have fewer and fewer French restaurants every year. The presence of French restaurants outside of France has steadily declined. Asian, Italian, and even South American food has quickly displaced French cuisine as "the best".
@lperea21 it's for the best. Tokyo has now more 3-star restaurants than Paris.
If you wanna know why French food is fancy, just watch an episode of "Top chef France", or "Qui sera le prochain grand pâtissier". Of course, it is not what people commonly make at home, but it gives you an idea on how food can be pushed to the level of art. Culinary arts oscillate between military discipline and pure creative expression. From the product terroir to the choice of the perfect dish, nothing is left to chance, every detail matters.
Really interesting dive in the ins and outs of French cuisine. I would have to add something tho.
The restaurant revolution happened a long time ago, but these first restaurants were NOTHING like ours today. These were brutal places, and chefs were considered pretty poorly even though the experiences were fancy. Not until one guy changed everything. Auguste Escoffier, a french chef, changed everything about the actual workings of restaurants. He standardized and "militarized" the kitchens of those establishments, and revolutionised how chef were viewed a century ago. He changed how kitchen were built, organized, he specialised the different jobs we have today, he made everything more safe/clean. His methods were SO GOOD that everyone wanted to learn from him. His restaurants/palaces in france and london were simply the best restaurants in the world. Every chef wanted to learn from french chefs because they were so efficient. Many chefs were sent all over the world to teach how to actually run a kitchen ( not cook, run a restaurant). THAT's the key difference between all the other cuisines : we just did it first.
Also french cuisine is moslty defined by what we call terroir, which translates to the products of the land. Meaning, french cuisine is based on very specific products ( cheeses, weird meats, wines, alcohols...). The same way indian cuisine is defined more so by it's immense library of spices, and spice mixes, french cuisine is indifferentiable from it's produces.
Spot on. Terroir means that as a French person, when I visit another city I want to at a minimum taste 1. their wine 2. their cheese 3. their pastry, because they're so different from the ones a few kilometres away. And now I'm hungry :(
@@caroles791 moi aussi après avoir lu ca 😂
Thank you for mentioning Escoffier...
There were chefs who actually are the one who invented the French high cuisine : Vatel was the one who introduced the art of chosen the very very best of ingredients and particularly Antonin Carême who is the one who actually organized Kitchen as "brigade", the"militarized" organization and invented the "toque", the chef hat Escoffier was inspired by Carême who is the one who modernize French cuisine ( his life is truly impressive he was a genius), to create the Michelin star :)
PS;
I think a lot of French people remember those family gathering during special days (Chrismas, New year, Easter...)
You would stay seated from lunch to dinner, making it a single huge meal made of a succession of different dishes spaced out with Trou normand, coffee, smoking breaks and maybe a little walk outside to tamp all the previously ingested food to the bottom of your belly.
When I worked in Finance, my company would take us to eat in the French restaurants around my city. I obviously couldn’t afford it myself, but man it was delicious. We would always get the most expensive things in the menu. Fell in love with the cuisine.
Nice video, as a french cook i think u missed the point tho, the reason why french food has this aura is mainly due to escoffier and ritz, michelin guide and the " nouvelle cuisine" wave in the 70/80's
Like escoffier designed the way restaurants works today all over the globe ( western world mainly), and michelin guide helps to develop fine dining in france earlier than in other country i think
@@GarrusLeVrai75 that makes sense but your " regular " food is amazing as well. I lived there for 10 moths and I can't remember a bad meal ever. I'm Portuguese and as you may know we like our food.
Don't worry about french food continuing to live off and "compete" for the next decades.
The reason we think more of french food as an idea than set recipes is because it is always in movement and has been since the Escoffier days. There are trends that come and go every year in French restaurants and its always pushing on innovation more than any other cuisines in the world to me.
Sure there are classic dishes, but french people don't often go out in restaurants to eat a classic dish they can do at home. They want a "cuisine d'auteur", to eat the creativity, soul and story of the chef/restaurant they eat at
I am Cantonese from HK with some partial Kinh ancestry, so I'm quite familiar with the French culinary influence on my region. French culinary influence does provide us with delicious dishes like banh mi and flame on the iceberg so I'm thankful for that.
Cantonese gastronomy is great and very technical too. Love it! Regards from France!
Cantonese rice is a fairly common dish in France
Also, I think the reason why when you think of Japanese or Italian food you get the dishes' names right away but not for French food is because we don't really have national dishes, it's very regional. Italy and Japan also have very regional food but there are a lot of dishes that are regional variations of the same dish while in France, you don't really have this, they might be some but it's not widespread. Also, French food names might not help to remember them easily. Furthermore, haute-cuisine is what people associate with French cuisine most of the time, so a lot of French restaurants abroad aren't affordable compared to Italian or Japanese, or Mexican. So you are less familiar with it if you aren't from France or living near the border.
Of course we have name of French dishes it's not just regional
When I'm thinking about my country's food I'm thinking about Boeuf Bourguignon, Blanquette de veau, Pot au feu , grattin Dauphinois ...... there are a lot and of course they are affordable ;)
@@ChachouLP You say "not just regional", but half the dishes you quote have a region in their name :D
@@tarmil Touché ! XD
That's at the same time pretty right and pretty wrong... yes we use a lot of regional names (more to call products than recipes but well, it happens also a bit) but each region and its specialties are part of our national food culture.
There's some regional competition and chauvinism for sure, up to enjoy bashing each others... but in the end people from Bordeaux (that are very proud of their regional cuisine) recognize Lyon as one of the best place to eat, and vice versa, and all together we are pretty proud of this diversity and take it as our national patrimony.
Very good video, even as a Frenchman I learned some good stuff here. You could have mentioned Escoffier who had a major impact on French and modern food.
Regarding French cuisine, I think there is not just one.
- We have the dishes that are our daily consumption in France, with important regional specificities and that is almost endless. This is still the heart of our cuisine, but you have to live here to really feel it I think.
- There is the gastronomy, which is a big part of cuisine in the end, and that is still very French based, and stil representing the sophisticated image France has. Michelin's guide, Gault et Millau remains the reference.
- And there is also a blooming generation of creative French chefs, that is reinventing French cuisine, adding international influences to it, new techniques...You still learn how to cook like nowhere else in cities like Paris.
French cuisine will never disappear for we have what we call "art de vivre". It's not just about food. It's celebrating life as it was an art form in itself. THrough eating, drinking, going out, making love.
And all of that we will never let go off
So basically a pretentious hymn to hedonism
@@ДимаВеселов-в8и How can hedonism be pretentious when some people live all their life, ironically waiting for death, pridefully thinking that they are the chosen ones of an all mighty being?
The only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.
@@PrimarchRoboleonFrenchyman hedonism itself isn't pretentious-the "art de vivre" is. I'm perfectly fine with people having fun and enjoying their lives, the problem with this french "art" is that they're trying to make more out of things than they actually are: "it's not JUST sex-it's stylishly exaggerated sex!", "it's not JUST food-it's stylishly presented food in a pompous place!" etc. creating almost magical flair around it, which works great for actual art and advertisement, but once you actually try it irl(you know, the VIVRE part of it), you don't get much more than your average experience, which WOULD'VE been totally fine if this stuff wasn't presenting itself like a promise of a concentrated blast of ecstasy, so in the end you get hit by a so high level of "instagram/anime vs reality" disappointment that it became a whole hecking psychological phenomenon called paris syndrome
So yeah, "art de vivre" is a PRETENTIOUS hymn to hedonism because it PRETENDS that life is more than just a life. It doesn't resonate with more spiritual people because it doesn't make any accent on what they may find in tgis whole lifestyle, and it doesn't resonate with materialistic people because, once again, the experience of this life itself is subpar compared to what is promised
@@ДимаВеселов-в8и Did you really experience the french art de vivre before or are you just talking about what you imagine about it? It looks like a lot of projection.
In France, when we talk about art de vivre or something aproching this concept, it is for a part about the quality (enjoying fine things) but also the simple fact of doing things. It is not about "stylishly exaggerated sex" (never heard this one before, well done) it is about not juging other for doing it. Encouraging people to enjoy life. If you want to have sex, have it, if you want to eat, eat, if you want to spend time with friends, let's go. The experience in itself is enough. You do not have to force it to have a good time with friends around drinks at a terrace. Art de vivre is about simple things being enjoyable, elegance being in them naturally and not living your life to work.
You find it pretentious just because you misunderstand the real message, and also seems a little bit biased. If this message do not resonate with you, fine, you say you don't understand it and go your way.
@@clemclem4076 then, I've probably fucked up here.
Having a good time enjoying your life and not judging others for doing the same is literally what any grown up internally balanced person would do and if you have a special term for it-it's perfectly fine. Turns out, I've had an issue not with art de vivre itself, but with an image among foreigners that is constructed via combination of art, stereotypes and advertisement
I'm French, and thank you for your dedication into this food channel. Continue the great job!
The bakeries, even if they're not dishes, will remain the main face of French food. There people do know the names, recognize the styles, they've even evolved and mixed with other cultures. Even in France it holds since not everyone is eating a fine restaurants all the time but breads, cheeses, and wines are still super common.
I do think quite a lot of French 'dishes' are rather well known though: coq au vin, confit de canard, paté/terrine/foie gras, bœuf bourguignon, cassoulet, onion soup to name a few. At least in the Netherlands and Belgium their existence is generally 'common knowledge' so to speak.
I think that's true, but in my experience it's also true there's the kind of idea of french food like is mentioned in the video.
@@crumbtember absolutely
None of those foods you mentioned are even close to the popularity of something like Ramen or Burritos or Mapo Tofu or Hamburgers or Pizza or Kebabs. France has no "superstar food" so to say.
And using Belgium where like half the population speaks French and yknow neighbours France, or Netherlands that is a moderately long train trip from France and neighbours two countries which share a border with France, is a bad example of the recognition French food has worldwide. I go to New Zealand or Iran or Brazil or whatever, people know the superstar foods. Can't say the same for confit the canard
@@Amaling crepes, baguette! but kinda true maybe hehe
@@Amaling macaron, croissant!
I think the influx of American fast food also impact how french food is falling off, even in places like Paris. France has the 5th highest number of McDonald's restaurant. And since more people live alone now, why spend 3 hours making a boeuf bourguignon when you can just grab a burger for 3 euros.
More 10€ 💀💀💀
When one reads your comment, one can really understand the joke of the ultraprocessed food industry. Why to make a 3-hours boeuf bourgignon when you can just grab a burger for 3EUR (more actually 5EUR)? Because it is CHEAPER, easier and better - you just chop the things, put in a pan, forget it and when it is ready, you freeze it. Tops 2EUR a portion if you put some rice with it.
You make a boeuf bourguignon to please other when you invite them. A meal isn't always a thing you eat on yourself , it's something you share with other .
French people don't usually eat "entrée-plat-fromage-dessert" alone , it's something you eat with other .
When i make food , it's because i like to do it , to take the time to make good food , to slow down a bit. But also because i wanna share with other , to make my friends , my family happy. To have a good time around a nice meal is one of the thing who make life worth it .
Also with some cooking robot like vorvek , you can make a not so bad boeuf bourguignon for half an hour . (i will still not used it but for people who don't want to take the time , it's worth to know it)
Yes, but still 'slow food' is rising in popularity/making a comeback in many western European cities
That's based
I'm french and I currently live in Canada and bro... The food is soooo bad here. In fact, I'll move back to France next year. That's not the only reason but it's a big one.
I thought when people were talking about french food being "better" they were talking about fancy restaurants (in which no average french eat btw) but no. Sandwiches from the grocery store taste better, meat taste better, candies taste better, even fast foods taste better (McDonald's is fancy in France. We have new burgers every month, like really new. Not the big mac with a different sauce. And every ingredient is local).
Here in Quebec you eat the same thing over and over at restaurants. You choose between pizza, burger, poutine, fried chicken... Over... and over...
In France you can choose 5 random restaurants and none of them will make the same food. And most likely every one of them will be good. Because there is so much competition you cannot open a medium or bad restaurant. And the price of a restaurant in France is like half of the price of the canadian ones.
When I eat food in Canada I feel like there are so many more uneeded calories for no added flavor. Pizzas are just thick and they throw every bad quality (because it's cheaper) ingredient they can on it. Ham is plasticy and water is injected in it.
I didn't like the stereotype about french food because I thought people were talking about fancy food but no. Even if you buy a meal to heat up in the microwave at the grocery store it'll taste good.
Poor Canada! I feel for you - it's rough!
I don't know, try eating somewhere else than fast food joints! I'm from Québec and there are restaurants where you can eat something else than pizza, burgers or poutine.
I was in Paris 2 weeks ago and I agree!
In France, the basic things are done superbly well.
i thought people from quebec are french they should have similar taste
@@frayserken Yes, and Americans love polo and cricket and eat scones and crumpet at the 5 o'clock tea...
Hello, I am French and I really liked your analysis. Today in France, there is such an ethnic mix that it enriches this cuisine even more. We cook the ingredients in really different ways (in the oven, in the pan, simmered...) and we use a lot of spices, it's a treat. Since the containment of the C.O.V. i.d many people in France have relearned to grow vegetables at home and cook a lot more. We go to restaurants a lot less.
As a French person, I wanted to thank you for making this video ! I knew most of it but I also learned new things about my country so thank you !
And yeah, French cuisine is more of a concept and a way of crating dishes. When you go to a good restaurant, most dishes don't have a "proper" or a signature name. Every chef can create dishes with their own touch, and I think this is why we consider it as art.
Also, it might be the case for tourist but us French people don't go to restaurants to "appear sophisticated" or something, we really go there for the food haha
Attention, les Français sortent dans certains restaus pour se la péter aussi. Ils sont comme les autres.
Fun fact, the 'ratatouille' dish in the movies ratatouille, is actually called à tian in french. Ratatouille is a completly other dish
Traditionally the entrée course was exactly what you suggested that it is: a starter course. In France this course might be, for example, a salad, soup, escargots, or pate with small vegetables. The entrée then leads to the plat principal (main dish) and this is where you find the really substantial dish organized around roast meat, poultry, fish. As an American, I think that we imported the term entrée a bit outside of its context. In other words, I do not think that there is a strong food culture tradition in the USA of serving a meal in a standardized and sequential series of distinct and different dishes, one at a time, like acts in a play. As an American who has lived in several European countries (and have now been living in Italy for the better part of a decade) I can attest to the absolute centrality of a structured and historic food culture that is an important part of European culture in general. Great video!
You should look into Augustus Escoffier, he’s definitely a second major reason
I think it is also important to say, that french cuisine emphasizes nowadays more it’s rich regional cuisines. France has basicaly every european climate, from oceanic to mediteranean to continental_by this they also have very different regional cuisnes.
From a French man : great video, you put a lot of work into it that's for sure. But the ending got me triggered haha. Comparing French food to Mexican food was kind of cute. The thing is, people don't see "French food" as one dish like we think of Italian cuisine as pizza and pasta, because French food is so diverse and there are so many dishes that vary depending on the region you are in, that it's hard to pin what is the actual star dish. Having grown in France and traveled a lot, I have come to realize that what makes French food "fancy" is the standing you get at the the restaurant. You are not just a customer, you are there to have a great time. You get free bread, free water, a great choice of wine of all prices and over the top dishes. The food is also of high quality. I really don't think it has fallen of any standard. Just avoid touristic places that only sells "steak frites". I actually listed all French dishes I could think of :
Socca de Nice
Pissaladière
Buche de Noël
Quenelles et sauce nantua
Nougat
Piperade
Tiele setoise
Oeuf moeurette
Camembert (truffe, au calvados)
Truffe
Axoa
Tian courgettes
Brandade de morue
Escargots
Moule frite
Crêpes de Bretagne
Andouillette
Kouign Aman
Le Welsh
Endives au jambon
Chipolata / merguez
Boudin blanc / noir
Ratatouille
Tapenade (anchoiade)
Bouillabaisse (soupe de poisson)
Pot au feu
La quiche Lorraine
Steak tartare
Aligot
Gratin dauphinois
Les crozets
Le foie gras
Cassoulet
La carbonnade flamande
La raclette
La fondue (savoyarde, bourguignonne)
La tartiflette
Hachis Parmentier
Choucroute
La soupe à l'oignon
Omelette sablaise
Tarte tatin
La galette des rois
Macarons
Crème brûlée
Ile flotante
Le vin (blanc, rouge, rose, gris, jaune)
Le kir
Le pastis
Saint Christain
Rillettes
Profiteroles
Le pâté en croute (Pâté Lorrain)
Bœuf bourgignon / coq au vin
Le cannelé
Oeuf en gelée
Paris Brest
Éclair
Madeleines
Gâteau au fromage du Poitou
Magret de canard (Omelette au canard)
Tomates farcies
Chaperon
Soupe au pistou
Blanquette de veau
Coquille Saint Jacques
Bouche à la reine
Saucisson
Mirabelle
Cuisine aux marrons (crème de marrons, sauce au marrons...)
Baeckeoffe
Cordon bleu
Les cressins
Les gougères
Les fouées
Fougasses
Rillauds
Fouace vendéen
Broyé poitevin
Un douillon
Steak Rossigny
Truffade auvergnate
Many countries in the world have regional cuisines like China, India, Italy, Spain, Japan, Mexico. French cuisine is not more diverse than the others.
@@marty8895 then make a list that long for the country of your choice. I'll wait. Quick reminder to you that France is about the size of California.
@theholypopechodeii4367 mexican cuisine is literally 50 shades of tacos and tequila. They literally put cheese on a tacos and call it a different dish 😂 tacos is essentially sandwich.
Speaking only about pasta, in Italy we have more than 450 types of pasta and thousands of recipes . Only for pasta. Speaking about risotto, is the same. The same is about gelato, fish, meats, salamis, panini, vegetables and side dishes, minestre, frittate, soups, game, seafood, desserts etc. Even for coffee and liqueurs. For each one of these foods every region in Italy has hundreds and hundreds of different recipes. And the regions in Italy are 20. We can also say that even every family has for each of these categories of food at least their own exclusive recipe that is handed down from mother to daughter and each one is worthy of a restaurant. You can go on and on for ages.
I'm just trying to understand how "Le Welsh" can be claimed as a French dish when it's just the French name for Welsh Rarebit, which is naturally from Wales...
As a French guy living abroad and being constantly asked "what are typical French dishes?" all the time, I found myself unable to answer this question and the subsequent "why is that so?". This video was very interesting to reflect a bit on my own food culture! :)
There are typical and distinguished French foods. There's people wishing they had more of it in their countries.
Truffade, bouillabaisse, crêpe, coq au vin, tartiflette, raclette, quiche,
@@calypsorowe4546le frérot a oublié la choucroute , la tielle sétoise , le pot-au-feu , le croque monsieur , le cordon bleu , la blanquette de veau , le bœuf bourgignon , la salade nicoise , le hachis parmentier , tous les gratins possible ou réalisables , le pain perdu , le steak frites , l'omelette , le canard à l'orange etc...😂
@@calypsorowe4546Tu ne fais pas ces plats tout les jours.
Damn dude, this is some high quality content
I think one of the reasons French food is so hard to actually pinpoint is because of the huge variety of dishes. "Fries and steak", "soupe à l'oignon", "crème brulé" and such amount for 10% of a French menu. You will find them on all menus, all over France. The 90% left are local dishes or creations by the chef, specific to the restaurant and/or the region. "Axoa", "quenelles", "piperade", "fougasse", "welsh", "bakehoff"... you've probably never heard of these dishes because you won't find them in a "French restaurant in Paris", you'll find them in the regions they originate from, or specialized restaurants. They're all equally delicious but they're so different from each others that they might as well come from totally different parts of the world.
Cassoulet is a prime example. It originates from the south west of the country and isn't readily available in common parisian restaurants, so a tourist could come and visit Paris and never ever figure out this dish exists. Guess what happens when press articles started talking about it in the US? It became an instant trend.
As a French person, I was really pleased by the amount of work and research you put into this video. And I've learned many things ! Thank you, keep up the great work.
France still has a very different style of cooking and dishes from region to region.
I'm from a region in the North-West and in the regions next to me (Paris and the North of France) the cooking is different.
You can see it mostly through the way our grandparents cook but there are some food items that are impossible to find outside of their region and even in national supermarkets, the items vary from a region to the other.
I just came back from South-West France and it was so funny to go grocery shopping and see all the differences.
It truly felt like I was in an other country the entire time.
Thanks for the video. But you miss 50% of French cuisine. The cuisine from the farmers (France is not only Paris, but a lot of terroirs), local dishes very famous, the quality of the products (bread, cheese, wine, charcuterie etc). And of course the art of the desserts, in another galaxy
french food is considered fancy because most dedicated french restaurants are higher end. in america literally everywhere has a neighborhood pizza place that is not that expensive. usually a french restaurant is considered fine dining due to the complexity of preparing some dishes.
Very nice video. As a french who use to live some years outside I saw the perception of french food can differs from inside reality of what and how people eat in France. There is the fancy "parisian chef" food wich usualy is the "image" of french food but there is the average "every day" restaurants, the multiple local/traditionnals foods, the variety is so important that foods from certains regions can be seen as another country's food. South, east, north, west, center, oversea got completly different food production it's amazing, need more than one life to try everything
Am I the only who can actually name french dishes? Ratatouille, Crêpes, Quiche, Foie gras, Onion soup, Soufflé, Tartiflette, Cassoulet, Chicken Cordon Bleu, Coq au vin, Beouf Bourguinon, Escargot....I mean these are super well known dishes, some of which have become mainstream elswhere (like crepes and quiche). Like there are tons of well known french dishes lol
Average person can't name any French dish but nearly everyone knows Pizza, Pasta and Sushi. I can only name Ratatouille because of Pixar movie :D. so your knowledge of French Cuisine is well above average.
French fries 🍟, French toast 😁
@@slomo4672 French fries are Belgian
Yeah but you can't sum up the cuisine in 2 or 3 dishes
Its a misconception actually. The myth of the belgian origin was revisited, and nowadays historians (including Belgian historians) agreed on the French, and even Parisian origin of the french fries. But Belgium became associated with the dish for obvious reasons now
I think people that are not from France struggle to understand how our cuisine works. Contrary to most countries we don’t really have like « Headline dishes » such as pizza, hamburgers etc…
Of course we have certain recipes that are well known in France, but if you go to a real french restaurant you won’t even find those.
It’s because our cuisine is made of ingredients and technics. I work in a classy French restaurant (but no Michelin star), and all the dishes are called *the main ingredient* followed by *how it’s prepared* and in description what comes with it, from a restaurant to another you will normally never have the same menu (unless you go to a place that serves traditional French food that people eat at home). That’s real French cuisine, when we go to a restaurant we want to discover new tastes and not just feed ourselves.
I don’t like to say that but I think that especially Americans judge a cuisine by it’s main dishes. Most Americans say that Italian cuisine is the best, but when you think about it, most of the time it’s pizza or pasta and it’s basique, you’ve got a base on which you add ingredients and bam you have a new dish with a name (seems like you love to put a name on stuff).
French cuisine is very complex and hard to explain even for me, and must be even harder to interpret by a stranger.
But anyway nice video!
Your content has improved a lot. Keep up the great work!
An interesting approach. However, like all great food cultures, Italian, Indian Chinese, Thai etc, French food is regional. That is how it is defined. And how it is experienced. What we may be talking about is Haute Cuisine. Great video.
I’m french and asked myself this and documented myself and got to the same conclusion. What france invented is the modern way of eating. Restaurants, food standards, but also the entrance/main/dessert sequence that didn’t exist at the time. So we invented an idea of eating, and we are still famous for that, which at the end, makes total sense. Everyday french food isn’t sophisticated at all for ghe most part. But the quality of the ingredients and the standards are what makes it french. Hope that makes sense ;-)
As a French person, I would like to add that people of France generaly do massive difference between what is call "haute cuisine": which is the fancy food served in expensive restaurant to impress posh tourists and another type of cuisine, more traditional, that you can eat at home or in a bistro. There is also a massive difference between dishes from one region to another: this is why it's so hard to visualise one single plate.
For relatively young channel, this is well-researched & edited. Here's hoping the Algorithm god bless you more.
Bro, your level of information and intellectual fascinate me a lot. A person who was cultivated by Le Cordon Bleu institution and trained well by this french chefs and tradition has open my mind about how the history and cooking and art and etc combine into this one finesse nation. Thank you for this content dude. God bless you for existing in this world. F the doubters, haters or losers and keep giving us all this beautiful information and knowledge. Godspeed. Merci beaucoup mon ami. C'est la vie. Cheers. All the best
English uses French words like Restaurant, Menu, and many others because, in 1066, William conquered England and forever altered the course of the language.
No restaurant or menu during the Norman Conquest . These words were later adopted by the brits
@grand news true... but the precedent had been set for English to do so. They weren't inventing new Anglo words but continously adopting Latin or French terms.
Beef, mutton, porc, the names of the animals changed from Anglo-Saxon to French between farm and table, that tells you something.
True for the types of meat (boeuf became beef, porc became pork, venaison became venison), but everything associated with modern dining business is derivated from 19th century's vocabulary.
The critical part here is that french food came from royal food and the standard to which they were set, other countries food generaly came from the popular dishes and specialties lower classes had, they shine more in their simplicity (Italian cuisine comes to mind for me, with many dishes with fewer ingredients). French food is maybe the only one that hasn't really street food representations.
One other thing you can observe is that french cuisines does have their typical dishes, Italy's pizzas, Japan's sushis, but their just regionnal ones. Burgundy has its escargots, wine and mustard (Dijon), Brittany crepes and cider, Normandy butter and camembert, etc... Must of these while regularly revisited and used by big chefs aren't these highly sophisticated dishes we see in restaurants but were originaly popular meals eaten by everyday people.
The Burgandian rule over parts of France and the Low Lands, about 3 centuries before Louis XIV, already had a reputation for enjoying food and drinks. In Burgundy you feel that connection to the riches the land produces more, but also with the joie de vivre, a general attitude towards life.
Pizza is a regional dish. It is from Naples. If the world knows it as an Italian dish instead of a Neapolitan one is because of stereotypes.
As a French I am so impressed with your well researched your video is and how well you grasped French history and its effect on dining. Merci
French food is comfy food. Mais pour les américains j’imagine que c’est sophistiqué parce qu’en fait, vous pensez à la fine cuisine et non aux plats servis dans les bistrots.
Sopt on - this whole piece is not about the food nor France, but society and the way humans think, interact and create. Thank you
French Canada though...maybe not romanticized, but very good French food and hybrids with Canadian food
Canadian food does not exist without french Canadian food !
Speaking of soft power, in the Elysée palace, the french president residence, cuisine is considered a diplomatic weapon. Inviting a foreign representative to a succulent meal in order to better the negociations is a real thing.
Anyways, great video !
Mon ami, I am impressed by the accurate knowledge you are sharing. So bravo! However, I just want to point out that it is not because you don’t know any of the french main dishes that french cuisine is unidentified or just a ‘feeling’ for everyone. French cuisine has the particularity to be either popular or elitist (haute gastronomie). Regarding the popular part, maybe you eat french fries, omelet, crepe, soufflé, bechamel, pistou, tartar, mashed potatoes, croque monsieur and french cheese on a daily basis. On the other side, the french cuisine has created the main technics to make sauce, cook a meat, mijoté, sauté etc and all these technics are used for the popular and elitist french cuisine. The difference with French and others cuisine such as the Italian one, is that France does not overpromote its cuisine. French culture usually focus on quality than quantity. However, yes french cuisine is less affordable compared to other populate cuisine (chinese, italian, mexican…) because it is more technical and requires more expensive ingredients.
I think you missed a trick by not incorporating a section on the difference between the classic haute cuisine and the nouvelle cuisine that is currently much more associated with fancy restaurants; plates with very little food on them, but arranged elegantly and artfully.
That said, I enjoyed the video and think you did a very good job at presenting French food both respectfully and honestly - because it IS, after all, just a national cuisine... I love it, but nobody can convince me that it's inherently better than, say, Japanese or Moroccan or Italian cooking. (Also, I share your bewilderment at the changed meaning of "entrée" in the US. Weird stuff happens in languages, and that's not just in US English.)
My hypothesis why French cuisine is romanticized is because of English colonialism. Why? Many French chefs made their way to England, some as cooks for gentry and nobility, and some in high profile hotels like August Escoffier at the Savoy. And when England decided to conquer the world, they brought French food with them, as the more cultured version of European cuisine (at least compared to English food).
That has an impact but your forgetting that France it self was an empire that conquered places worldwide and that the French language is used as medium in many countries in Africa!
That hypothesis is kinda anglocentric
@@user-dz4eb5rb3g idk how much that actually has an impact since very few of Frances colonies imported her cuisine In a meaningful way. Infact they introduced new dishes to France.
The vast majority of internationally known french dishes were ones that Anglo nobility hyped up the rest is due to the recent globalism he mentioned.
@@arthurlecomte8950 but it's the correct answer to be honest
@@kaindrg could be a part of the truth, but it’s a part. What I mean is that there are other countries than England who contributed to this. Since the 17th century French has been thé language of the upper class families of Europe. Even the Russian royal family spoke French more than they spoke Russian. And Britain was not the only European country who conquered parts of the world since that period. France refined the art of cuisine and made it to what it is today. Its like how we use Italian terms for music theory, because they refined the systematic thought of music; in the same way the French did with the art of cuisine.
For the record, I like cassoulet, head cheese and the classic non-confit byaldi rattatouille. Neither are considered high end. But they are quite cozy choices.
Very interesting takes. Thank you for this video.
I'm french, did a culinary school and i love to cook. Another reason why it is complicated to associate french food with an actual dish is also because of the diversity of our food. It is deeply connected to the fact than in a relatively small country we have a lot of different climate and landscape (sea, mountain, cold and wet, warm and dry...). Italian food is connected to some few ingredients (tomato, eggplant, basil...) some country have also a clear national dish or spice... which help picturing a specific dish.
And by the way, in ratatouille, the rat is not making a ratatouille 😅
this is an amazing essay
I didn't know half of this, thank you ! it made me sad knowing people from abroad would order Ratatouille just for the movie, Ratatouille is literally my favorite dish !! Everyone should try Ratatouille with rice, this is comfort food😋🥰
Adding my little contribution : i think italian and austrian influences (for the fancy pastries) were also decisive in the process of making french cuisine appear more sophisticated than it is.
Somehow this video helped me understand what is so suffocating living in France. It's easy to feel alienated in this country comparing what we see of our culture in the medias where luxury lifestyle is overrepresented and what it is in reality (even if the ordinary cuisine is excellent in my books, grandma's cuisine in particular😋).
This reputation has a lot of consequences on the lower class :
- in some places, there are restaurants aiming at middle/high class and tourists everywhere but barely no "ordinaries" for working people (that we call "Brasseries"), they are often overcrowded, when not completely replaced by fast food. The fact that business owners are heavily taxed doesn't help.
- food that was affordable and considered food for the poor (like sea fish, wine, some kind of mushrooms, and recently cow meat) are now gatekeeped by the wealthiest.
- when products are lacking, they are sold in priority to restaurants and we have nothing left. To have good products at the same prices as your grandparents had them, like wine, you have to know someone who sells his productions without the State knowing, as most of the good productions are sold abroad making prices skyrocket when demand is higher than supply. This is too much.
Why would you feel sad about people getting interested in your favorite dish cause of a movie. I'm glad and I don't mind people getting interested in good things and my interests from entertainment. Much of what people learn is through entertainment. You can't fault people for not knowing things or uncommon things, like your favorite dish. At least French is more famous in media then other cultures, like Vietnamese. I actually hope media would show more things like lesser known cultures.
Foods that were once for the poor have become expensive and fancy luxuries around the world too. Not just France.
there are definitely staple french dishes you can find in any french restaurant. not every one has this super unique michelin star type food
Exactly. Like creme brulée is generaly a must have dessert or pot-au-feu/boeuf bourguignon/blanquette de veau are some well know meal (at least in france) .
The thing is , like in other country where food are important (italy , japan , turkey , etc.. ) , each region in these country have their own food , and they are proud of it.
I was amaze when i visit hamburg (amazing place) that they didn't have one dish related to the city itself. I really try to find one but nothing was here
The best i find was some speciality from northen germany (a rosbif with potatoes, something nearly every french would associated with the brits ). For a city of that size (1.85 millions people!) , it's impossible to find that in france (or other country with a food culture like italy , japan , etc.. ).
@@Eldiran1 La spécialité de Hambourg, c'est le hamburger !
@@marcyvon8404 Avant oui surement, pour être aller la bas 2 fois ce n'est plus le cas aujourd'hui .
Fun fact but the meal served in Ratatouille isn't Ratatouille at all it is a recipe wich was created for the movie itself.
A really well made video . Enjoyed watching
FYI, Safran was a local spice at the time. Not only is Safran originating from Europe, but Boynes (France) was safran's world's capital city from the 16th through the 19th century.
As a french, I'm glad to listen to an american to teach me a bit more about my own country xD
Good stuff mate, keep it up!
An amazing video and wonderfully done! Keep up the good work!
I'd be happy if French food lost its popularity, cause then it means I can enjoy more of it ! Since not many tourists will come and eat
I went to all over France. I find even in France french restaurants mostly be found near tourist traps. In french local neighborhoods, most restaurants are pizza, burger and Asian food
Hello as a french person i would say that i really loved your video.
The evolution of the cuisine throught time was hightly onfluence by the monachy, but there was a major influencer at the end of the 19 th centuary and the beguining of the 20 th centuary that made the french cuisine we know. His name was Auguste Escoffier (1846- 1935).
He was a genius regarding the promotion of french cuisine around the world. He also revolutionized the way of cooking, and the organization in the kitchen( basically it is still teached now in cullinary school). There is so much to say about him, that it would take to much space.
I wonder if there's not some connection to the Norman invasion of England in the 11th century. For hundreds of years after that, the entire English court was French, and everything French was considered high class as a result.
@@DiotimaMantinea-ub6yr I suppose if by "sophisticated," you mean "having more letters you don't pronounce," then I wholeheartedly agree.
Good video, but the "La liberté guidant le peuple" painting that you use at 8:44 is actually about the 1830 revolution, not the one in 1789. Other than that, good job!
Well made video. As an expat, I find sad that I can't find everyday french dishes at normal prices in restaurants :(
I agree with how it's badly represented for foreigners, especially for cheeses. Everyone knows of mozzarela, gouda or cheddar, and the country they represent, but they have no ideas about french cheeses (maybe brie ? but not as a symbol) even though we have more than 500 kinds... Maybe too much choices for fast food culture dominating the world...
Le dernier classement des fromages a eté fait par un organisme américain . Ils ont placé un ou deux de nos fromages (le comté et le bleu) mais loin des premières places. On rappelle que les américains n'ont pas le droit d'exporter des produits laitiers crus non pasteurisés . Et 3/4 de nos fromages sont crus 🫠🫠 jdis ça jdis rien ☠️
@@Lostouille Dans certains etats on peut acheter du formage non pasteurisé.
On peut trouver du comté dans les traders joe par exemple. Par contre c'est que du 6 mois d'affinage... Mais vraiment les américains ne connaissent pas.
@@RationalTrade oui , d'ailleurs ils commencent un peu à connaître le bleu et justement ils kiffent celui là..alors imagine le St Félicien , le Rocamadour et autre.. 🙂🙃🙂🙃
@@Lostouille Il a des artisans locaux qui font des st marcelins. C'est pas mal du tout, par contre c'est pasteurisé, donc ca manque de profondeur de gout.
Et c'est pas a la portée de toutes les bourses ^^.
9$ pour 150g environ.
Les bleux y en a plusieurs mais comparé a du roquefort c'est vraiment pas fort le gout.
Hello, I'm French, used to be a cook and I love this episode that refresh my memory from culinary school.
And like you, I have no idea why you turn "entrée" the salad we eat before main dish, into main dish.
It can be from the influence of Julia Child or because when famous chefs start the 15 course dishs they call entrée the fish or the brisket.
There must be about 200 + years of making food ...first by Kings and their cooks (Vatel is a well known cook..) and then traditions by royals who made experiences and keeping diversity alive...Its the same in Italy and then all the Asian countries who have century old cuisines...they seem to be the best !!
French people here. Absolutely loved this video, great research work and great thinking for the future of french food. I don't know if it will fall off sooner or later, nothing is eternal after all, but clearly we have more concurrence now with italian, korean, mexican or even chinese cuisine. Très bonne vidéo :)
La gastronomie Française est et restera ce qu'elle est :)
Awesome video!
They had a lot of different courses to a banquet. A lot. And Entree wasn’t the first, I think it actually came at the transition to the main part of the meal. Then we simplified to a handful of courses & dropped a lot of the names. Linguistically it seems more obvious to use entree for the appetizers, but in practice it was just a name for one of the courses at or just before the beginning of the main part of the meal. So my theory: when simplifying a) they just treated them as names and somebody liked entree and kept the name and perhaps also b) it’s not as “wrong” as it seems when we assume entry means the very beginning.
This video is a good, but you didn't mention the Haute Cuisine and especially Auguste Escoffier.
Which makes this video missing some information. The portion pertaining to Louis XIV and his history was somewhat dragged out, and could have been condensed. Despite this, the premise was clear.
Also, your style reminds me of Johnny Harris videos, keep it up!
Not all French food is fancy. Everyday food in France, eaten by the average Frenchman and Frenchwoman, can be very different from what's served in over-hyped and over-priced so-called French restaurants, which are essentially bent on selling 'edible illusions' for the 'blasé' ones or for gullible tourists.
That's literally what he says in the first 45 seconds of the video.
Too bad you didn't mention Auguste Esciffier, who turned past restaurant into today high end restaurant. He is the one who invented the idea of "brigade" for example
True, but his name was "Escoffier"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Escoffier
@@FlatFab004 yes thank you
Please more of this. I love your content
There used to be a chain of French cuisine called Vie de France that wasn't pricey but I don't see them anymore.
You forget to mention the most important of all the one who made the french cuisine the standard and also the organization of the kitchen. M. Escoffier is the one who invented the worldwide organisation of the kitchen. And this will answer your question of why you use french word in American restaurants it s because of" the methode of Ritz Escoffier" ritz was an English who set up the standard for palace and Escoffier the standards for kitchen and restaurant
Here before he blows up to 150k subs hahaha. This guy is awesome
Very well researched and well done video! Congratulations I really enjoyed it. The fascination you mention, however, is mostly Anglo-American.
I've travelled extensively in Europe and can confirm that in most European countries French restaurants are just one option among many which are actually often more popular, especially Italian, Turkish, Arabic or Asian restaurants, mainly because indeed French food is usually not quick nor easy to understand (unless you go to a brasserie, but that's already too specific for non-Francophones).
That doesn't mean that the fixed idea about French food 'fanciness' is not shared across Europe, it is. It's just that most countries in Europe have learned to value their own culinary traditions, or others in the world that they may have been more exposed to, are easier to communicate or feel more exotic (take Indonesian food in the Netherlands for instance).
I confirm that the only European country I can think of with a quasi-cliché approach to French restaurants is the UK-London more specifically.
Why the French Revolution was awesome for the world:
I feel like the Michelin stars being french centered also solidified the idea that french cuisine is fancy.
You put into words something I feel as a Brazilian living in France. I'm constantly ordering Chinese food or Italian food, but every time I feel like eating French food I end up not doing so because there is no such a thing. With other restaurants, no matter which one I pick, I have an idea of what I'll get, but every French restaurant is just completely different from each other, so I don't know what to expect. It's great when you want to explore, but not so great when you are just looking for something more specific, known, sort of like a comfort food. You often don't get disappointed, but you may as well find yourself eating something delicious but which was not what you were looking for/craving.
If you live here, and want to know what you're eating, just try to learn the language a bit ?
@@camillecapdeville1347 who said I don't speak French? Go back one turn and try again.
mdr@@AlanCristoffer
As a french, I can't think about one french dish, but it's mostly each region with it's own specialities, I can think about the fondue and the raclette in the Alpes, the cassoulet and the foie gras in the south west, a lots of charcuterie cooked with vine or bread around Lyon, light Mediterranean food in the south east with a lots of vegetables and seafood, choucroute and flamenkuche in the north... plus all the cheese 😁 I'm personally not a fan of the fancy gastronomical food, I'm more about local food
I am french and really liked the video, You wrote it to be really intresting, I even learned about my own country history. Thank you for this video dude. Also to the question "how many time this idea will reamin ?", I think that even if french food is becoming kind of rare in our restaurants, the true speciality will reamin in the menues as a part of our history, and theses dishes are still really good. To all the people that will come in France one day, please try the speciality of france and discover this culture of simplicity, I promise that you won't regret it ( exept for snail dudes like wtf why are you eating that, only the butter is good in it)
Hi from France :)
French cuisine will keep being an experience full of concepts, or an idea if you will, despite being "only" food, because its concepts are based on food.
All starts by what we call the terroir, meaning the taste of the environment and the traditions where raw materials are produced. We know the difference between a chicken traditionally farmed in Loué, or Bresse, and an other one mass produced in a factory cuted from the environment. That's why so many of our products are called using small areas names.
Then the amount of terroirs is through the roof, giving an insane amount of variety. Best examples are surely wines and cheeses. Starting with same raw materials (cabernet grapes, cow milk etc) terroirs provide hundreds of very distinct products. In a way we don't have wine, we got Bordeaux, Graves, Saint Emilion, Beaujolais... we don't have cheese, we got Camembert, Roquefort, Bethmale...
French cuisine is just the tip of the iceberg as it only gives more added quality value to produces that are already great by themselves and can be enjoyed without extra work. Some bread, cheese and delicatessen, some wine, and there you go... it's not high end cuisine, but it's already a very French and delicious meal you wont find anywhere else.
Also French cuisine is a lot about fusion. France is already a major crossroad in Europe with lot of very different influences, but we also have a lot of history and inspiration from many other parts of the world that used to be French (Maghreb, Africa, Asia...) or are still French (Caribean islands, Guyana, Polynesian Islands...). One of the most popular meal in France is Couscous... we absorb in our cuisine, and in our cultural habits, whatever meal we find great, and most of us are very curious about foreign food. Using original terms we care about "twists" and "comfort food" because we also like American food, we talk about "umami" because we are found of Japonese food. We are very porous to foreign food and fast to adapt it to make it our own.
But if you understand food by "low quality industrial stuffs that can be produced anywhere", it doesn't change much : we are full of that, we mainly eat that for decades, and French cuisine hasn't died.
The only danger for French food is climate change, as it modifies a lot our terroirs. But I feel we'll keep making French food no matter what, because in the end it is all about adaptation.
Most dishes that are iconic in french culture aren't easy to export
Love that question about the entree - i was so confused when i saw a US menu for the first time. Still scratching my head
Im not french but for me french food is one of the most exotic in Europe and the least boring because its usage of ingredients and combination of flavours that almost don't exist in Europe. For exemple, most european countries use very commun ingredients. If you compare a stew with potatoes and meat with a duck confit and dried prunes with berry sauce, the second has that fancy vibe to eat.
Some of these unique dishes are:
Sweet potatoes Parmentier with duck confit.
Walnut and pears salad with vinaigrette.
Chickpeas stuffed chicken with bell peppers sauce.
Fish stew with saffron and chillies flakes sauce.
I like most of your video. Only thing I would add is that french people make distinction between "Traditional" or everyday cuisine and what we call haute cuisine or haute gastronomie.
Not the same
You missed an important part : the work of Auguste Escoffier, in the 19th century, who built the modern French cuisine and added a new depth of codification. It also enabled a professionalisation of the job that now leads to basics that are learned all around the world (especially when it comes to sauces). French cuisine also has such a status because it's a cultural thing that is embroided in our norms and values. You mentionned that a few people know what a ratatouille is, but if you ask a French kid, he will for sure, as for dozens and dozens of other dishes, or ingredients. We tend to ritualize the process of eating, taking our time, making the effort to have a starter and a main dish (at least for those who can afford), it is simpler when you eat alone at home, but it comes back almost automatically when you invite guests.
Finally, you didn't mention something : France is geographically gifted, we have an agricultural powerhouse with top quality products, and for all sorts of products (meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, you name it), which makes French food of a better inate standard.
At 8:43, the first painting (Freedom guiding the people) is actually depictint the 1830 revolution
excellent video, exactly what i had been searching for, thanks!
It's funny, being from Portugal I've never found French food to be fancy. That's not to say that it isn't sophisticated or that it had no influence over here, but I don't think I've ever come across a French restaurant over here (that I remember).
I'm Spanish, I live in France and pretty much same - it doesn't generally strike me as being "fancier" than our food.
@@albertolaboria5866our food is not as much different as yours. It's just Italy being the face of mediterrannean food and they based their cuisine on 3 ingredients (pasta/tomato/olive oil). We are just more diverse than that , I think we (the latin and romance countries) should not be copy cat of each other in term of cooking 🤷🏻♀️
Because in this culture food is pleasure and a social indulgence. Theres psychology behind how this culture eats and to Americans its an incomprehensible concept
In Asia there is no French restaurant that’s not labeled “fancy”. Some of them just serve steamed chicken and vegetables plated nicely. I don’t think that’s French food
French food doesn’t have a chance in Asia
@@memesins5647 Because they never tried
@@WolfearOfficial it’s bogus and bland. Not even virtually close to any Asian cuisine. Even Japanese (blandest Asian food) is far better tbh.
Because the french did not have to immigrate to these countries .
@@memesins5647 I'm Chinese living in France, Asian food is for cheap people, that's a fact.
Sorry but you missed the point, Escoffier was the man who really changed French cuisine.
But thank you for this lovely video about my country, hoping to see you soon in France. 😀
World have forgotten French cuisine because of how diverse it is. From cassoulet to choucroute, stopping by bouillabaisse. You can have a lot of foods here.