Quite.
hmmm...not sure how long you have been with SFN Vincent...but our threads, as a matter of course, always stray from the initial topic...the rules of SFN are dinner party mode....and just as discussions at dinner move from one area into another...thus it does here. I think if someone has had experience of seeing poor kitchens, there is no harm speaking about it. I dont know if you can say kitchens are the same in France as the UK or anywhere else for that matter...I expect its different for every establishment. You mention your hate with TV chefs I assume in the UK....thats allowed...in the same way anyone here with bad experiences can speak about them. We are a pretty free speaking lot...and like to cover our topics thoroughly.
It does depend upon where you live in Burgundy. Tracy lives near the great wine producing areas and eats out with clients, perhaps a free meal for the tour guide.
Here in the Clunysois of southern Burgundy we have so many restaurants offering boeuf bourginon, even in the summer
We had an interesting meal in one of the vineyard villages of the Maconnais, 22 euros for three courses plus wine at lunchtime.
I don’t think casting aspersions on french kitchens is called for, as they are no different from those of the UK and other places, when it comes to percentages of good and
bad. When I had my first kitchen, I used beech for the worktops and chopping boards, because it is a known fact that beech-wood is more or less self sterilising. Then some clown of a bureaucrat tells us we have to use plastic boards, which ended up with deep cuts that festered all kinds of nasties. I refused to change and talked to the health officer, who was in his late fifties: he agreed with me and said OK. Now beech is back: I suppose the plastic lobbyists man moved to another job. Ever since my restaurant experiences, I never use serrated bladed knives or keep raw meet in the same fridge as cooked. Another thing that really gets my goat, is the brit TV chefs handling cooked food and salad food with bare hands, as they arrange the display on a plate, yet in sandwich bars etc, plastic gloves are required. Even the local boulangers use gloves, including our local Intermarché. No amount of hand washing will kill the nasties. Because my restaurant was in the university area, we had an extensive vegie menu, and colour coded utensils: blue for vegie.
This thread is supposed to be discussing the sourcing of food, and I think the subject has been well covered. I know I’m the last person to keep on track in a thread, but to blaggard the French for their kitchens, is like the kettle calling the pot black, and below the belt, as regards this thread.
Vincent....one of the best places years ago for meals was the Routier....the French lorry drivers ate like kings...reasonable prices...and superb hearty food. One of my most memorable meals in France was at a Routier.
I was a matron in a nursing home...when I arrived our 'chef' was using Brake brothers....it was ok....but not good home cooking and I re-negotiated with our chef and he agreed to cook from scratch...a vast improvement. I would be less than happy to be given a Brake brothers meal in a restaurant in France!
The better restaurants that we have eaten in have rarely disappointed...but they are now very costly since the introduction of the Euro. I have undertaken a Cordon Bleu cookery course. I have also previously provided catering, dinner party cooking for friends and acquaintances...I know what good food is.
I have rarely had a good steak in a French restaurant...the meat needs hanging to improve it, and that isnt common practice in France.
In our small town we have a pleasant Italian restaurant.....that has large queues outside in the summer..the ambience is what brings everyone in. I am not 'knocking' French restaurants per se....but we have been visitors to France for well over 30 years...and either the food in France is not so good as it was, or we are used to much better food in the UK, because we have plenty of OK French restaurant meals but few really good ones.
You are lucky Tracy....we do not have good local butchers. There is a butcher who is in the market every week...but 6 rashers of bacon is 5 euros...so although the meat is good...I would need a mortgage for a rib of beef. We like our steaks and beef blue....so its not incompetent cooking. The French are willing to chew more, I have had French aquaintances tell me the steak we are eating is lovely....I am eating the same steak and it isnt lovely to me! We have friends who have had a house in St Sernan near Beaune for 28 years... she tells me they have given up eating out locally as no decent restaurants...I guess its where you are and if you are lucky enough to have decent local restaurants. We have two good places near us...but both come out around 60 euros a head with wine. Britain has overtaken France in the food stakes...(pun intended)...the food has improved hugely over the last 20 years..whereas that isnt the case in most of France...as evidenced by the fact so much of it now (nearly 80%) is bought frozen and microwaved.
That's interesting Tracy but I've often heard good reports about food in Burgundy. Round here it is absolutely pants. It may well be because we live in a very touristy area so the restaurants can afford not to rely too much on repeat trade. Having said that, even in the small local villages which are less touristy, the 'menus' are dire.
And no, I don't want to pay to be served Brake Brother's food either! I've worked in catering in the UK and know what is in it!
Another point is that I do a lot of training courses in restaurants and invariably see the kitchens. I've been so appalled by the levels of cleanliness, that these days I would rather eat in McDonalds than risk it. And that is saying something.
Virtually nothing is made from scratch - there is a very well regarded restaurant round here who tout stuff as being home made and I know it isn't - the chef's wife showed me - and of course that has an effect on quality. Anyone who says otherwise is living in cloud cuckoo land.
I don't actually like beef or anything made with it just about anywhere in the world, so here in Dordogneshire one third of the vast range is struck off the menu. I am also so bored with the duck, duck or duck that people from the UK, Netherlands and other parts of France drool over that there is nothing left to say.
You may well be right Tracy. Some areas perhaps, including once many starred Michelin establishments in them, have lost it. Our problem is that in other parts of France we have been disappointed too often as well, but we have not been to Burgundy in recent years so let's hope it stays as you find it.
I'm with you Vincent on this one. Don't know where you guys all live but here in Burgundy we are surrounded by excellent restaurants, as a tour guide I eat in them frequently and the hardest part is deciding where to indulge my tastebuds. We are very lucky as there is a 3* Michelin resto in our village and several 1*s not too far away but our local brasserie does an excellent 4 course ''menu ouvrier' for just 13 euros - all you can eat buffet starter, main plate, cheese and desert. My favourite is the home made 'croque madame' 20 mins wait unfortunately but well worth it. I think that this possibly is the issue - good food takes time and these days everyone wants things in a hurry and isn't prepared to wait. France is now catering to the whims of those who want to eat and be gone, therefore something has to give.
I can't agree with the beef issue either - our local butcher is superbe, the details of where the meat comes from are on the counter for you to look at. The butcher then tells us how to best cook it and how long for - I have found that if you use British cooking times then the meat is not good as it does not benefit from being over cooked. People I know actually bring back joints of beef from the UK, cook it to death then say how delicious it is - yeuch! Maybe the restaurants in Dordogneshire are trying too hard to cater to British/international tastes and that is why the quality has gone down :-0) (that is a joke by the way)
There was a glitch on my system, here is the full text.
Having been a restaurateur and hotelier, also written a small guide to restaurants in a part of France, and sampled the food from all grades of restaurant in the area of Charente/Dordogne/Gironde, I have no complaints.
I have been in the kitchens of several restaurants and interviewed the owners on numerous occasions. In this area there is a vast choice of grades of restaurant, from top international chefs to home cooking in small routier bar/cafés. The lunchtime routiers often resort to factory produce, which mostly comes from a brit company: Brake Brothers. Brake's standards are quite good and serve a need: that of catering for the "worker's lunch".
I have done many costings based on prices in both supermarkets and artisanal shops when it comes to meat and fish, and even with the higher costs of artisanal purchases, the €12 lunch still makes a €6 profit. For example, in a certain village where there are 8 restaurants, 3 of which are seasonal, none of them use factory food. One of them, before it changes hands, did, but not anymore. These outlets range from one offering haute cuisine (bordering on fantasy), three offering medium priced demi-haute cuisine, one offering standard regional, one offering international (Thai included) and french crêpe dishes, one offering personal receipts (specialties) and a crêperie. Across the river in the next village, a husband and wife team produce lovely home cooking (4 courser evening meal €15 and more than you can eat!) they also do a lunch with wine for €1 euro less. In the next chef lieu de canton, there are routier cafés and a château restaurant of exceptional quality (€30+-), and in the other direction, there is another château restaurant of high quality. I'm talking of an area of maybe 15 km sq, a mere speck on the map. So, for anyone to say they don't eat out because of the drop in standards, is a joke.
As to french cuts of meat: The French like the way they cut their meat, and some of us are really quite tired of the constant complaints from brit expats on this subject.
If one doesn't like eating in restaurants that only specialize in local dishes (duck, duck, duck) then they should read the menus before going in, and find somewhere else. The "regional" restaurants are for "specials" and "visitors". The specials are usually French, who want to eat nicely cooked regional dishes, that they don't do at home. The visitors are tourists, who have not experienced the regional, or like to repeat it on their holidays.
I have also done research on the type of clients who use the outlets of the above village. The fantasy people have 80% French, the crêperie 90% French. Two of the seasonal have 90%, and the personal specialties people 90%. Two of the permanent demi haute cuisine are expat owned and have 50% French. Two others are expat, but they belong to the 90% French.
The two château restaurants specialize in fresh produce, and one has an extensive potager of its own. Both are french owned and have 80% French, which drops to 60% during the very high tourist season. They both assure me that the non-french are only 50% brit.
To say that wages are the root of this usage of frozen food, is again, nonsense, as I have also looked into wages in detail.
Someone mentioned italian food: I love italian food, ever since I became friendly with an italian hôtelier, and experienced her cooking. The average italian restaurants outside Italy, unfortunately don't do the country's cuisine justice, other than the likes of Carlucio, who presented a wonderful series of programs for UK telly. Oddly enough, the theme tune for his "feast" was the chorus from a "hymn to Our Lady of Lourdes", which I also use on my program.
To put the Post piece in perspective: if one includes the road side routiers and cheap café/bars, then the figure of a third makes some sense, but to include them along with higher class restaurants, was just typical journalism, and coming from Yanky Land, it figures, as they have had it for France ever since the French wouldn't play with Blaire and Bush in their war games. So much so, US restaurants even dropped "french" from "french fries" substituting "liberty". They have banned duck foie gras, even though ducks can't be force fed, because of the shape of the necks. That neck fact is well known, so the ban has other roots.
This awful state of affair is new. Before (in the good old days...) it would have been impossible to eat dairy cattle.
Now, you need a really good butcher, of course, but even then you have no guarantee, artificial insemination is the first culprit, then the fact that cows don't get to graze the way they should, plus their living conditions... I've just given up on beef.
Having
Jacquie, scratch really is scarce. I frequently make bread. Several French friends have said they do occasionally but usually use those part-baked loaves you put in the oven. I am lost when I hear such things. The fact I even use bakers' yeast and set it off with some yoghurt and such ideas has them rolling their eyes...
I like the idea of how long a meal takes to arrive being a good indicator, but it won't work for everything. The boeuf bourgignon I cited earlier would have been cooked earlier in the day, for example. Whenever my boys complained about the length of time food took to arrive in a restaurant, I'd suggest that maybe they'd like to be in the kitchen at home from the beginning of food preparation until serving time!
Perhaps one of the reasons people accept poor food in restaurants is because they don't cook for themselves from scratch; scratch is becoming a scarce ingredient.
Brilliant! I like your style....a woman after my own heart. I feel you are right with the percentage of food cooked in the restaurant......sadly I bet the requirement for the sign doesnt go that far...so we are left with the 'sewn on button' home made. Then again, I think you can tell by how long the meal takes to cook.
If "home made can be a ready meal finished off in the kitchen", then the home made profiteroles are bought-in choux pastry filled with ice cream at the last minute and topped off with ready-made chocolate sauce?
Perhaps it's the definition of "home made" that needs refining - that more than let's say x% of the dish has to be made/prepare on the premises? Make that 70% and there'd be hardly any restaurants showing a home made symbol.
In my opinion, it's no different from having a garment made in a sweatshop in Asia or North Africa, then having the buttons stitched on in France for it to qualify as 'made in France'.
As for looking in the kitchens, well, I can't imagine many allowing that. At the end of the day, trip advisor, personal Facebook pages, etc are likely to be the only way to ensure that some of the worst offenders stop taking hard-earned money from their customers.
Many years ago in the UK I wrote a cheque in payment for a meal, and after the amount, wrote something on the lines of "for a badly cooked meal served by indifferent staff". When the manager complained, I asked him whether he was prepared to renegotiate the bill. He said no, so I told him that he could accept the cheque and thereby let his bank manager know what I thought of the meal. The cheque was cashed and I felt I'd had my say.
Oh agree, agree, agree! you are absolutley correct Jacquie! the cheating happens in the UK as well in some places (often middle of the road hotels). Home made can be a ready meal finished off in the kitchen...not the same thing at all. Asking for vegetarian dish sometimes highlights the fact the restaurant doesnt have such a thing as a pan in the kitchen when they cant manage even an egg dish.
Asking to look at the kitchen is becoming more common in the UK....I cant imagine asking to see a kitchen in a French restaurant...cant see that ever catching on!
My understanding was that labelling would show that a product was "home made" (cooked on the premises) but I wonder what the definition of that really is. Say a restaurant buys in meat that's aseptically packed (enabling it to be kept for longer), then transforms that into say boeuf bourgignon. I assume that qualifies as a home made dish because it's been cooked on the premises. The difference there from having the meat delivered fresh and kept in the fridge, is simply that the aseptically packed fresh meat will keep for longer and under better hygiene conditions.
However, a bought-in ready-prepared boeuf bourgignon wouldn't qualify as home made.
There are going to be an awful lot of confit de canard served that will no longer qualify as home made. A television programme a couple of years ago here in France showed how to identify these, principally by the sawn bones, but I suspect many chefs who saw the programme then bashed the bone ends! There always has been cheating, and it will continue.
The problem, in my opinion is not only with the restaurant, it's with the customer. One might expect a pizza chain to offer hundreds of different pizzas, because all they do is vary the toppings. Customers should not go into a restaurant offering a mile-long menu and then expect the offering to be cooked on the premises. Just as you wouldn't be offered five different dishes at home, then you shouldn't expect to see that number on the menu of a decent restaurant.
One of my favourite local restaurants has a choice of two starters, three main courses and three desserts. Once something has run out, it's out. A couple of years ago the restaurant owner had a party of nine Parisians who complained that she couldn't serve them what they wanted because they'd arrived an hour after the time for when they'd reserved the table; they threatened to leave and drive for half an hour to the nearest pizza chain. The restaurant owner held open the door for them!
However, the same restaurant owner also knows her kitchen and what can be done to tweak things to get around fussier eaters. Nothing on the starter menu appealed to my younger son, so she offered him cured ham with a side salad. Ask a restaurant to serve the sauce in a side dish rather than on the meat or fish for someone who's not sure about the sauce; if they can't do that, then you're pretty sure the dish has been bought in.
Things need to be sorted out, but customers need to be more knowledgeable about food preparation, and that's coming from British tv cooks, not French ones!
It is not the cuts that are wrong, they are just different. The law bans restaurants from serving beef that has been hung for more than ten days.
Supermarkets can sell for up to twelve days. Even Tesco sold twenty eight meat!
Feel the same Holly....when we decided that we didnt like a lot of things in France, sadly one of the things was food; as holidaymakers who have travelled to France for 30 odd years...we loved the food. We would make trips across to Calais and shopped in the hypermarkets at Christmas for special foods....have read recently that now people in Calais pop over to Dover to shop!