# Why isn’t French food more popular? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [October 12, 2025, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904 "2025-10-12T22:22:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2025, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/41 "2025-10-13T21:06:37Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > As noted above, much of what we just call high end restaurant food is some form of French or Italian cuisine. They are not called French restaurants, they are just called restaurants. Yep. And not even that high-end, either. Here are some midcentury _Joy of Cooking_ recipe dishes that we now consider just standard “food items” that the average middle-class American in, say, 1940 would have considered quite exotic: - Quiche - “French bread” or baguette - Hollandaise sauce - Beef bourgignon - Chocolate mousse - Brioche - Petits fours - Canapes - Meringues - Macarons - Parfaits - Casserole au gratin - Fondue - Souffle - Croquettes - Creme brulee - Bisque soups - Eclairs - Omelette - Hors d’oeuvres - Vinaigrette dressing - Consomme Mayonnaise and fricassee were probably sufficiently familiar culinary terms at that point not to seem too unusual, but I wouldn’t swear to it. And I’m ignoring more recherche terms like “pate” and “madeleines” and “vichyssoise” and “a l’orange” and “florentine” for anything cooked with spinach, and “chasseur” for things with mushroom and tomato brown sauce, even though I bet many Americans nowadays recognize them just as part of “food”. Since the days of Delmonico’s in NYC in the mid- to late 19th century, French _haute cuisine_ has been the gold standard for US “fancy food”. And over the decades, many of its basic components have diffused into American ideas of “ordinary food” as well. [ETA: Didn’t notice that **SanVito** already said a lot of this, sorry!] ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2025, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/42 "2025-10-13T21:38:06Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > ASL Spanish is the most common language in American high schools. French is the second most common language. Some schools have Latin. Mandarin, Punjabi, Tagalog, and American Sign Language aren’t very common. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2025, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/43 "2025-10-13T21:47:36Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Spanish is the most common language in American high schools. French is the second most common language. Some schools have Latin. Mandarin, Punjabi, Tagalog, and American Sign Language aren’t very common. Do you have a cite or stats for this? ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2025, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/44 "2025-10-13T21:53:13Z")
I think French food suffers a bit from its own reputation. Most of us grew up having French food praised to the skies as something incredible and apart from other cuisines. So a person will go into a French restaurant expecting to have the food experience of a lifetime. When it turns out that what they are served is good to even excellent, they still aren’t very impressed because they were expecting something amazing. They can’t help but feel disappointed, even disillusioned. That doesn’t really explain the lack of French restaurants around America, but maybe it does the lack of popularity. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2025, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/45 "2025-10-13T22:05:41Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Ray Charles once said “Poor people don’t waste nothin’ on a pig”, going on to describe how basically everything but the oink could be eaten or used for something. What’s this now? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2025, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/46 "2025-10-13T22:24:45Z")
The most common languages taught in kindergarten through the senior year in American schools are, in order, Spanish, French, German, Latin, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian. In American universities, it’s, in order, Spanish, French, ASL, Japanese, German, Chinese, Italian, Arabic, and so forth. Here’s the citation for this: > **[List of most commonly learned second languages in the United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_commonly_learned_second_languages_in_the_United_States)** > > The tables below provide a list of second languages most frequently taught in American schools and colleges. They reflect the popularity of these languages in terms of the total number of enrolled students in the United States. > Below are the top second languages studied in public K-12 schools (i.e., primary and secondary schools). The tables correspond to the 18.5% (some 8.9 million) of all K-12 students in the U.S. (about 49 million) who take foreign-language classes. > Below are the top forei... ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2025, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/47 "2025-10-13T22:39:16Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > > [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > > > Ray Charles once said “Poor people don’t waste nothin’ on a pig”, going on to describe how basically everything but the oink could be eaten or used for something. > > What’s this now? What’s what now? Charles is frequently quoted as having [said that his below-poverty-level childhood family in Georgia “ate everything on the pig but the oink”](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1980/05/21/ray-charles-amen/e04c2424-0e8b-4a7f-9ac0-6968bae3665d/). Charles didn’t invent that idiom, though: it’s a well-known saying about the utility of pig products, sometimes in the form “everything but the squeal”. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/48 "2025-10-14T00:13:06Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Charles didn’t invent that idiom, though: it’s a well-known saying about the utility of pig products, sometimes in the form “everything but the squeal”. I’m familiar with the folkism but not the attribution. In any case, it seems kind of obscure for Charles. It’s not like shake a tail feather or hit the road, Jack. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/49 "2025-10-14T00:19:39Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > I’m familiar with the folkism but not the attribution. In any case, it seems kind of obscure for Charles. Well, [it’s claimed that this passage appears in Charles’s 1978 autobiography _Brother Ray_](https://www.chronicle.com/article/dillards-culinary-journey/)_:_ > [@](#): > > “Country folk don’t miss nothing on the pig — ears, feets, insides, and outsides. We ate everything on the hog except the oink. Neck bones, chitlins, collard greens, rice smothered with onion gravy, cabbage with thick pieces of ham, sweet watermelon. … Man, we might be poor, but we ate good.” Make of that what you will. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/50 "2025-10-14T01:21:21Z")
and the menus are in French (how many customers can speak it?), and the reputation of snobbish waiters ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/51 "2025-10-14T01:25:17Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > restaurant on the Great Lakes in Conde Nast. My next stop at Edwins will be to try some[Pate de](https://chezfrancois.com/) don’t forget my fave, La Petit Triangle ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/52 "2025-10-14T02:00:35Z")
> [@fedman1](#): > > and the menus are in French (how many customers can speak it?) “Very good, sir - one order of ‘Closed Sundays.’” ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/53 "2025-10-14T03:08:13Z")
> q.q.switcheroo > And Paris Baguette is Korean. They also operate in China! I saw one when I lived in Jinan about 12 years ago. The gal at the counter was from Korea so we swapped stories. ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/54 "2025-10-14T03:27:22Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > Paris Baguette One opened a few weeks ago near me and I really like it. Pastry prices are lower then restaurant desserts and a huge variety. Right now I’m hooked on the chicken Caesar sandwich. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/55 "2025-10-14T03:36:54Z")
> [@jnglmassiv](#): > > What’s this now? Ray Charles recounted this in his autobiography _Brother Ray_. It’s a direct quote as best I can remember. ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/56 "2025-10-14T04:59:40Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > The new viral way to make french toast is to let a half gallon of vanilla ice cream melt, then use tongs to dip your bread into it, and put the bread right on to the skillet. The authentic recipe uses French vanilla ice cream. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/57 "2025-10-14T18:20:36Z")
Which they no doubt just call vanilla ice cream. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/58 "2025-10-14T20:42:54Z")
We’ve got a fairly popular chain around here serving French-oid food. It’s decent bistro type food, but even then I think people’s perceptions of French food as being some combination of snooty, expensive, and fancy work against it. > **[la Madeleine | French Bakery & Café](https://lamadeleine.com)** > > Enjoy a meal or a hand-crafted bakery treat at la Madeleine. Our authentic French fare is the perfect reason to relax with a book or celebrate with family. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/59 "2025-10-14T21:32:07Z")
Question: If French food _were_ more popular, what _specific_ French food would be popular? Like, if French restaurants were more common, what food(s) would you expect to be able to walk into any French restaurant and order? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904/60 "2025-10-14T23:49:48Z")
Maybe boeuf bourguignon, stuff like that? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isn-t-french-food-more-popular/1023904.md?page=4)