What do French people eat?

I am curious as to what French people eat. I've never had French food before. Here in the United States I can't seem to find food with French influences anywhere (it would have to be imported), so I am wondering what you guys eat while you are in France.

BlueLioness said:

I am curious as to what French people eat. I've never had French food before. Here in the United States I can't seem to find food with French influences anywhere (it would have to be imported), so I am wondering what you guys eat while you are in France.

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They eat pretty much the same things you do. It just has different names

All of these words (in no particular order) are of French origin (I'm pretty sure you use these words in US):

crepes
mousse
soufflé
tart
fondue
biscuit
sausage
soup
salad
bouillabaisse

And most importantly: fries

There are so many more dishes that you probably don't realise are derived from French.

American food is derived from English food, and English food was very heavily influenced by the Normans, who were French. France and England are also very close geographically, and share a lot of cultural things, such as food. Not to mention there were so many early French settlers of the Americas that you probably eat a lot of French-derived foods without realising it.

Some stereotypical French foods include things that no-one probably eats, like escargot (snails) and grenouilles (frogs-legs), as well as a lot of things that are commonly eaten, like paté, croissants, cheese, sausages, wine, quiche, and so forth, as well as more bread and sweet little pastry and fried and baked things than you can poke a stick at.

I haven't been to France since I was quite young, but my sister was there a month or so ago and reports eating things like lasagne, quiche, soup, and vegetable bake for dinner, and toast and jam for breakfast. She hasn't said what she had for lunch because she's still a little stunned with her first experience of school-provided lunches to comment.

I think almost everything has been said. We don't usually eat snails or frogs.. It's not very frequent. And we don't eat vegetables, meat or fish for breakfast, it's mostly toast, cereals, juice, coffee, hot chocolate... Hope it could help

I think something that might surprise people is that most of the time we get three course meal: entrée, plat, dessert. Maybe not when eating at home, where we can skip the entrée or insert the fromage after the plat at will, but at the cafeteria at work or in the restaurant, it is very typical to get the 3 course meal (reduced to 2 if you want to eat or spend less, either entrée-plat or plat-dessert).

The food is very varied, but it is not uncommon to get hamburger & fries at the "plat" (main course). We eat rice & pasta a lot, potatoes, vegetables of all kinds (but we don't boil them like the english, we cook them right). And fish, pork, beef, chicken, mutton, seafood... We borrow ideas from other countries as well.

It's very easy to find recipes on the web, you might start here for instance: Marmiton.

Well, I have heard, that for breakfast the French have coffee, a baguette, and a cigarette.

When I was in Spain, which is sort of like France (well, it borders France...), we had usually a muffin and coffee for breakfast. I don't think the Spanish are big breakfast-eaters, although on my first day there, my host-mother served me up so much food: pancakes and cereal and fruit and all sorts. I think she thought I was American... After that, I asked her if I could please just have fruit, which is a much more common breakfast in Australia.

One thing one must remember is that most "western" countries are quite similar these days, in terms of what people eat and what they wear. Perhaps if you visited a small rural village in France, people would eat quite different things to what younger people in the cities and towns would eat.

Steve Petersen said:

Well, I have heard, that for breakfast the French have coffee, a baguette, and a cigarette.

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coffee & baguette, yes, by all means!
not the whole baguette though ;-). Only a little bit with jam.

Bonjour! So I hoped you didn't just mean the French people in France because otherwise I will feel bit ostracized... Here in the province of Québec (which is actually closer to you than France) we have several meals of our own. The most "Québécois" meal, which we strongly associate with our provincial identity, is la Poutine. We also have le Pâté Chinois (I don't have a clue
why it's called this way though!) amongst others.

http://cdn.mtlblog.com/uploads/2015/10/alto.jpg
http://www.arcticgardens.ca/media/cache/19/09/19094a48f2d81689c574b121045b8502.jpg

French fries!

French toast!

Sapiens said:

Bonjour! So I hoped you didn't just mean the French people in France because otherwise I will feel bit ostracized... Here in the province of Québec (which is actually closer to you than France) we have several meals of our own. The most "Québécois" meal, which we strongly associate with our provincial identity, is la Poutine. We also have le Pâté Chinois (I don't have a clue
why it's called this way though!) amongst others.

http://cdn.mtlblog.com/uploads/2015/10/alto.jpg
http://www.arcticgardens.ca/media/cache/19/09/19094a48f2d81689c574b121045b8502.jpg

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Franchement la Poutine c'est tellement bon..

In my area we eat a lot of charcuterie, sausages, potatoes, pies, strong cheese and we drink alsatian beer and white wine. Our favorite fruit is the mirabelle, we do some liqueur and cakes with it. Lorraine and Alsace's specialities, when it comes to the food, are so good. The only food from my area you might know in the USA is the "quiche Lorraine". But if by "french food" you meant the one from Périgueux, Lyon or Paris this is quite different of our case!

And I assure you: nobody eats Bouillabaisse apart from Marseille! I never understood why the whole world considers it as a great french speciality because in France nobody cooks that.

But everyone eats a lot of bread and cheese, at every meal!

And the French Fries are not french at all, they come from Belgium!

Jimmy John's sub on French Bread.... Where the heck are the tomatoes? I do also miss the alfalfa sprouts!

Aliya said:

I think almost everything has been said. We don't usually eat snails or frogs.. It's not very frequent. And we don't eat vegetables, meat or fish for breakfast, it's mostly toast, cereals, juice, coffee, hot chocolate... Hope it could help

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Couldn't resist.

A bloke walks into a French Restaurant, and asks the waiter, "Do you have frog's legs?"

The waiter replies, "Oui, Monsieur!"

"OK" says the bloke, "Hop across the road and buy me a packet of cigarettes!"

Confit de canard. It's FANTASTIC!
It comes in a can. It's duck. It's in duck or goose fat.