Cuisine
French
The cuisine that codified Western professional cooking: stocks and mother sauces, butter and wine, bread and pastry, and strongly regional terroir cooking beneath the haute cuisine.
Flavour character: Rounded and layered: butter and cream, reduced stocks, wine, shallots and fine herbs (parsley, chervil, chives, tarragon), mustard and vinegar for acidity, and careful browning.
Regional cuisines
- ProvençalThe sunny Mediterranean cooking of Provence and Nice: olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, wild herbs, olives and fish soups, closer in spirit to Italy than to Paris.
- AlsatianThe Franco-Germanic cooking of Alsace: sauerkraut with pork and sausages, tarte flambée, baeckeoffe, kougelhopf and white wines, eaten in winstubs.
- Burgundian and LyonnaisEast-central France's wine-and-beef cooking: dishes braised in red Burgundy, Dijon mustard, Charolais beef, Bresse chicken, snails and Lyon's bouchon cooking.
History
François Pierre de La Varenne's Le Cuisinier françois (1651) broke with medieval heavy spicing and set out stocks and roux. Antonin Carême in the early 19th century systematised grand sauces and banquet cooking, and Auguste Escoffier's Le Guide culinaire (1903) and kitchen brigade system shaped restaurant kitchens worldwide. The restaurant as an institution developed in Paris in the late 18th century. Nouvelle cuisine in the 1970s lightened sauces. The 'gastronomic meal of the French' was inscribed by UNESCO in 2010.
Well documented
Geography and influences
Atlantic, Channel and Mediterranean coasts, dairy pastures in the north and west, vineyards across the country, the Alps and the Pyrenees: butter cooking in the north, olive oil in the south, duck fat in the south-west.
- Italian Renaissance cooks (commonly cited, debated)
- Royal court at Versailles
- Parisian restaurant culture
- Regional peasant cooking (cuisine de terroir)
Regional variations
- Normandy and Brittany
- Butter, cream, apples and cider; crêpes and galettes; seafood.
- Burgundy and Lyon
- Wine-braised meats, Charolais beef, Bresse chicken, mustard; Lyon's bouchons.
- Provence and the Riviera
- Olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, herbs and fish soups.
- South-west (Gascony, Périgord)
- Duck and goose fat, confit, foie gras, cassoulet, truffles.
- Alsace and Lorraine
- Germanic dishes: choucroute, tarte flambée, quiche.
Festive and seasonal food
- Bûche de Noël, oysters and foie gras at Christmas
- Galette des rois at Epiphany
- Crêpes at Chandeleur (2 February)
- Lamb at Easter
Signature dishes
- Boeuf bourguignon
- Coq au vin
- French onion soup
- Ratatouille
- Quiche Lorraine
- Cassoulet
- Bouillabaisse
- Gratin dauphinois
- Blanquette de veau
- French omelette
- Moules marinières
- Crêpes
- Crème brûlée
- Tarte Tatin
- Croissants
- Baguettes with poolish
Not on the site yet: Pot-au-feu, Confit de canard, Steak frites, Sole meunière, Escargots de Bourgogne
French · 20 min · 211 kcal · 
