FOOD CULTURE IN FRANCE - MAJOR FOODS

MEAT

In today’s affluent society, consumption of la viande (meat) is high. Concerns for health are causing perceptible shifts in this pattern, although for the moment the trend to eat signifi cantly less meat occurs largely at the highest rungs of the economic ladder; there are few vegetarians in France.
France is the foremost producer of meat in the European Union. It raises more than enough for its own population, but imports to meet the large demand for cuts such as steaks and roasts. On average, each person eats 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of meat yearly, only slightly behind Australians (110 kilograms or 242 pounds yearly) and Americans (105 kilograms or 231 pounds) as the biggest consumers of meat in the world. Meat is the centerpiece for most main meals. French cooks have the reputation of being creative and frugal, ingenious and resourceful. They have invented succulent dishes that use all parts of animals slaughtered for meat, wasting nothing, although the modern lifestyle prefers fast, simple preparations.

Beef and Veal

Most boeuf (beef) comes from the powerful white Charolais cows originally used as draft animals or from cows formerly bred for milk: the black-and-white Normande and the Salers from the Auvergne. French butchering practices differ from American. The cuts of meat are more numerous and smaller. Nearly all methods of cooking are used for beef: boiling, stewing, braising, frying, sautéing, grilling, roasting, and broiling. Thin steaks are accompanied by fried potatoes for steak-frites. Thicker steaks are eaten bleu (“blue,” quite rare), saignant (“bloody,” rare), or à point (medium rare), according to preference. Tastes do not run to well-cooked steaks. Overcooking dries out the meat, ruining the fl avor as well as the texture.
For hachis parmentier (shepherd’s pie), ground beef is arranged in a baking pan between two layers of potatoes mashed with milk. The dish is baked, then served cut in squares. Beef or horse chopped up and eaten raw is tartare. The delicate, sweet-tasting raw meat is garnished with pungent,highly flavored condiments, including chopped onion, mustard, salt, pepper, capers, pickles, and parsley; sometimes a raw egg is broken overthe tartare. Fattier cuts of beef are cut into small chunks or cubes, then cooked slowly to make stews.
Provençal boeuf en daube, flavored with red wine and orange peel, and boeuf Bourguignon, or beef stew with Burgundy, mushrooms, bacon, and small onions, are typical regional dishes. Potau-feu combines several types of meat for a rich boiled dinner. Veal is considered white meat, rather than red, because of its color.Cuts of veal are roasted, sautéed, grilled, or stewed.

Lamb, Horse, Venison, and Goat

Studded with garlic and perfumed with rosemary, a roasted gigot d’agneau (leg of lamb) is the favorite celebration or Sunday meal. Lamb gives chops, meat for stewing, and racks (with bones in) for roasting. It features in recipes adopted from the cuisines of France’s former colonies, such as Moroccan tagines, stews cooked in an earthenware pot with a conical cover and a hole in the top like a chimney through which the steam escapes, leaving only the concentrated fl avors of the dish.
Cheval (horse), much of it imported from the United States, is eaten on a smaller scale than in the past. Large quantities of horse bones at Upper Pleistocene sites at Solutré, in Burgundy, date the consumption of horse to prehistoric times. Before horses were domesticated, the preferred hunting method was to drive large numbers of them off the edge of a cliff. In the early Christian era, eating horse was frowned upon, as the practice was associated with pagan rituals. Two popes, Gregory III in 732, and Zaccharias in 751, forbade eating horsemeat. Their interdictions affected consumption throughout Europe. By the nineteenth century, any horsemeat that was available was cheap because it was unpopular. In the 1850s, the government promoted horsemeat, on the principle that it would improve the diet of the laboring classes, and productivity would rise.
In 1866, the first boucherie chevaline, or boucherie hippophagique, opened in Paris. A few of the specialized butcher shops remain. Horse enjoyed a short-lived rise in popularity after the mad cow scares of the 1990s, especially in the Paris region and in the Northeast toward Belgium. Horse is darker red than beef, lean, and fl avorful. It is prepared like good-quality beef, such as chopped raw and garnished in tartare or cooked as steaks and cutlets. Chevreuil (venison) is available in markets and on restaurant menus in the form of steaks, sausages, and dried sausages. Chèvre (goat) is eaten on Corsica, primarily in stewed and braised dishes. Chevreau (kid) is eaten in the South in the early spring.

Pork and Charcuterie

Porc (pork) is relatively inexpensive and served in roasts, fi llets, steaks, stews, chops, and ribs. In 1808, the food writer Grimod de la Reynière praised the pig as “encyclopedic” and a “generous animal.” He meant that nearly every part is edible, including the skin. The dictum Tout est bon dans le cochon (Everything from the pig is good) echoes this observation. In a historically rural country, it was a mark of prosperity to be able to keep a pig, which would be slaughtered for its meat. Today, farm-raised sanglier (boar, wild pig) is also cooked using similar methods as for pork. A cochon de lait (suckling pig) is roasted whole. Pieds de porc (trotters, pigs’ feet) are braised, and then fried or baked, or pickled. More than any other meat, pork takes to processing through salting, drying, smoking, and pickling. The range of charcuterie —cured and cooked preparations primarily from pork—testifi es to the ingenuity of generations of butchers and charcutiers. In the past, smoking and drying preserved meat that could not be consumed right away and must be stored against hunger. Whereas the wealthy could afford freshly slaughtered meat, charcuterie was food for the poor. Today, the taste for charcuterie is general; some preparations are marked with the AOC (Controlled Denomination of Origin). Lard, meaty fresh bacon, is indispensable. Small pieces flavor omelets, enrich soups and stews, and garnish salads, potatoes, and vegetables. Lardons are strips or cubes of pork back fat or lean salt pork that are seasoned, then tucked into a roast, added to stews, and pan-fried to add to salads. Richly fatty, salty, and crisp, lardons are served to accompany a before-dinner drink. Saucisses or fresh sausages require cooking before being consumed, whereas saucisses sèches or saucissons secs (dry or salamitype sausages) need only to be sliced. Dry sausages have a firm, oily texture and a sharp fl avor from the salt, pepper, and other spices that flavor them, such as whole peppercorns. Whole green pistachios may add sweetness and crunch to a hunter’s venison sausage. Saucisses de Morteau, boiling sausages, are recognized by their seal and a tiny wooden peg tied into the end of the sausage; the enormous, lumpy Jésus de Morteau was originally a Christmas sausage. Merguez are spiced beef or lamb sausages of North African origin, outstanding when cooked on a grill. Boudin noir (blood sausage) is coagulated beef or pig blood. It has a soft, rich, unctuous texture, and is purplish-black in color. It is double-cooked: lightly poached, then pan-fried. Andouille or andouillettes is chitterling sausage, made of pig intestines and stomach that are cleaned, marinated, smoked, soaked, and then cooked. Sliced andouille has a firm, chewy texture and a swirly appearance from the strips that compose it. Rillettes, native to Tours, is a finely textured pork sausage made from bits of the belly, shoulder, and gullet.  Braised in fat, with vegetables and spices added for flavor, the meat breaks down into a smooth, pale, creamy, mass. Rillettes are served sliced into rounds and spread on crusty bread or toast to accompany an apéritif such as a glass of dry white wine. Jambons (hams), boiled and smoked, are a staple. French hams are less salty than American, and none have a sweet coating on the outside. Some hearty stews are based on chunks of fresh ham. Ham is eaten as an appetizer, as part of a light lunch, or sliced into an omelet or quiche. It appears in the spectacular cold preparation jambon persillé from Burgundy. Bits of pink ham and chopped bright green parsley are molded in clear aspic to make colorful, jewel-like slices. Dry, salty hams sliced paper-thin are eaten with figs and slices of melon, like the Italian treatment of prosciutto.

Offal

In defiance of mathematics, butchers call les abats (offal) the cinquième quartier (fifth quarter) of a slaughtered animal. The “noble” cuts, or steaks and roasts, derive from the two forequarters and hindquarters. Les abats are the rest: organ meats, glands, the feet, the head. Offal has always been the cheapest meat, although the choice pieces—calf livers, kidneys, and brains—were often reserved for feasts or celebrations. François Rabelais, the priest turned physician, professor, and scribbler, wrote an offal feast into his novel Gargantua (1534): Les tripes furent copieuses, comme entendez, et tant friandes estoient que chacun en leichoit ses doigtz (“The tripe was so copious and so luscious, that everyone licked their fingers”). There are few specialist tripiers these days, but butchers and supermarkets sell offal. Pale, delicate foie de veau (calf liver) is coated with a minimal dusting of flour, then gently sautéed in butter, or lightly stewed or braised with a sauce such as tomato and red wine. Livers are also grilled, and pork liver is used in pâté. Rognons de veau (calf kidneys) have the finest texture and flavor, but pork and lamb kidneys are eaten as well, sometimes as brochettes (grilled on skewers). Beef kidney requires braising, as it is large and firm. Tripes (tripe or stomach) have a honey-comblike appearance. Cooked à la mode de Caen, tripe acquires an apple fl avor from cider or Calvados, and a tender texture from slow braising, traditionally overnight. Gras double is beef tripe that is cleaned, cooked, and ready to eat. The langue (tongue) from a cow, calf, or lamb is boiled or braised, then served with a sauce having a strong acidic component from tomatoes, lemon, vinegar, or wine. Lamb or calf cervelles (brains) are marinated, then fried or sautéed. Ris de veau (sweetbreads, i.e., the thymus gland and sometimes the pancreas), animelles (testicles; also called, metaphorically, frivolités ), and coeur de boeuf (beef heart) are eaten. Tête de veau (calf’s head) is carefully boned so that the features are maintained, then rolled before cooking. Beef and lamb offal further features in the East European and North African Jewish and Muslim cuisines that enrich French cooking.

Poultry and Rabbit

La volaille (poultry) is a versatile basic. France exports more poulet (chicken) than any other country in the world. Most birds are raised on industrial chicken farms, although domestic demand increases for organic and free-range birds. The blue-footed, white-feathered, red-crested coq gaulois or Gallic cock that is the symbol of France is a Bresse fowl and has the AOC; they are sold with head and feet intact. Whole chickens are roasted to a golden brown. Cut into pieces, they are fricasseed or braised.
Elegant suprême de poulet is a chicken breast stuffed with vegetables sliced very fine, then garnished with a red wine sauce. Poule-au-pot (“chicken in the pot”) is a favorite dish for a weekend meal. Like the beef pot-au-feu, it is a boiled dish that gives both soup and a main course from the meat. Chapon (capon), pintade (Guinea fowl), canard (duck), oie (goose), and dinde or dindon (turkey) are eaten. Duck is considered dark or red meat, and it is served with the breast done slightly rare and pink. Turkey and goose are fare for the Christmas season; however, turkey is in demand year round. The game birds caille (quail), pigeonneau (squab), faisan ( pheasant), perdrix (partridge), bécasse (woodcock), and bécassine (snipe) are considered special treats. The small birds, which tend to dry out, are often sold already barded or wrapped with strips of bacon or salt pork that melt during cooking.
Lapin (rabbit) and lièvre (hare) are sold with poultry. The association derives from the practice of keeping chickens and rabbits in proximity in a basse-cour (farmyard). Today, rabbit and hare are farmed, but the wild animals are fair game for amateur hunters. Rabbit responds especially well to moist cooking such as a braise. Civet de lapin is rabbit stew fl avored with red wine and thickened with the rabbit’s blood or with pig blood, giving a distinctive unctuous feel on the tongue and a dark color.

Foie gras and Confit d’oie

The Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Romans ate foie gras d’oie or fattened goose liver; French household manuals from as early as the sixteenth century give explicit instructions for fostering grand foie (“big liver”) in geese through gavage (force-feeding with grain). Geese lack a gag reflex, so they can swallow about a cup of grain at a time if it is gently funneled into their throats. The resulting fat is stored primarily in their livers, which enlarge and develop the characteristic silky, melting texture. The tradition was long associated with Jewish communities in Metz and Strasbourg, as kosher dietary laws permitted eating fowl. Most foie gras now comes from several departments in the Southwest; ducks are given the same treatment as the geese. Some fresh livers are sold raw to be cooked at home.
More frequently they are cooked first, then sold jarred or canned. At this point the foie gras requires no further cooking. Whole lobes are considered higher quality; large sections from different livers that are lightly pressed together are less expensive; mixtures of foie gras and fats resemble pâtés. It is eaten hot or cold, usually as an appetizer or first course. Hot preparations of foie gras are in fact heated just enough to bring out the flavors and texture. Good foie gras is pink and firm and has a clean-looking shine. It pairs with jellies and with fortified or sweet wines. The traditional combination of foie gras with truffles is considered the ultimate indulgence.
Plump geese and ducks raised for foie gras can be cooked and then stored in their own fat, for confit d’oie or confit de canard (preserved goose or duck). The rendered fat prevents the meat from coming into contact with air, and it is used in cooking; before refrigeration, making confit was essential for storing the meat. Today, both the meat prepared in this fashion and the flavors of the fats are much appreciated. Goose fat lends outstanding flavor when used to pan-fry potatoes, vegetables, and omelets. Goose or duck fat flavors cassoulet, the hearty stew associated with the towns of Castelnaudary, Carcassonne, and Toulouse. The combination of pork rinds, duck, goose, or lamb with haricots blancs (navy beans) is baked in a slow oven. Traditionally, the brown crust must be punched into the pot seven or eight times during baking; the exact number is a matter of debate among cooks and members of one of the gastronomic confréries (brotherhoods or associations) that is devoted to cassoulet.

By Julia Abramson in 'Food Culture in France', Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut  U.S.A· & London, 2007. p.45-51- Adapted and edited to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

Share this post