Hard to say, I think, except of course for the ubiquitous baguette.
ISTM that the thing about French food is that it’s all about regional, and even micro-regional, adaptations. Other than, mmm say, baguettes, crepes, macarons, is there some single dish that’s both quintessentially French and eaten by (almost) all French people?
Cassoulet? Boeuf bourgignon? I could easily see almost any serious French restaurant just not happening to serve those particular dishes. Mayyybe coq au vin or pot au feu would be more of a standby? But again, I can’t see diners expecting that every French restaurant would automatically have them.
I think it would be easier to pin down guaranteed availability of some structure of dishes. For example, in basically any French restaurant I would expect to be able to find a dish with some portion of animal meat, prepared with some sauce, accompanied by a potato preparation and another cooked vegetable. (“What?!” I hear you cry. “That’s just the universal meat-entree-with-a-couple-sides that you can find in any restaurant!” Right, but the reason it’s ubiquitous as “any-restaurant” food now is because it was originally associated with “classy” French food. An ordinary 19th-century American eating-house might just cook you a chop or a steak along with some bread and butter, none of this “artful combination of complementary meat starch and vegetables” business.)
I would also expect to find a greens-based salad with a non-cream dressing. Some kind of desserts combining fruits and cream or creamy sweet cheese. Definitely something dense and chocolate.
This is challenging, at least IMHO. I really think it’s kind of a signature feature of French cuisine that it resists being boxed into the concept of one or a few specific “flagship” dishes.
I recently watched a series of travelog style videos on YouTube in which a pair was attempting to travel from the westernmost point in Europe to Istanbul (because parts of it are considered to be in Asia) entirely by train. They had a self imposed rule that weren’t allowed to leave a country until they’d eaten that country’s national dish. Except when they got to France they discovered that France doesn’t have one single “national dish”, it has a bunch of regional dishes. They decided eating any of those dishes satisfied their rule for France.
I live in the middle of nowhere, but am a short drive from lots of places that have Steak Frites, Steak or Tuna Tartare (carpaccio seems to be gaining favor or tartare in the steak world), and French Onion Soup.
French restaurants are usually marketed as up scale with valet parking.
I’ve never wanted to spend a $100 or more per person.
Gordon Ramsay has pointed out that many restaurants don’t know the proper techniques to cook French cuisine. They get away with it because their customers aren’t that familiar with the authentic dishes.
That would be me. I have no idea what the dishes on a French menu are supposed to look and taste like. Maybe it doesn’t matter if I like it? Good food is always appreciated.
That’s certainly the mainstream perception. By and large, as many have already said, the simply assimilable dishes (Quiche? Omelets?) have already done so and what remains labeled as “French” is French haute cuisine, both old and new.
It’d be interesting to try to introduce more French rural cooking to America. A lot of it might go real well.
I think there’s a perception gap between a lot of the more common peasant/bistro type food and what Americans think of it.
I mean, French onion soup is stupid easy if you’ve got a crock-pot/instant pot. And it’s delicious. But for some reason people think it’s fancy or difficult. Same thing with stuff like potatoes au gratin, and ratatouille. Boeuf Bourguignon and coq au vin are a hair more involved, although I wouldn’t call either fancy or difficult.
But Americans don’t think “French beef stew with wine” or “stewed chicken with mushrooms and wine” , they hear fancy French terms and “wine”, and assume it’s fancy and difficult. Yet in reality, it’s just the French throwing in the booze they’ve got, just like thousands of chili recipes involve a bottle of beer. Nobody thinks that’s fancy, just like nobody thinks brats in beer or Guinness stew is fancy.
My wife, and to a lesser extent me, have been going through “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” (Child et al, 1961) and I’m pretty much consistently surprised how simple so many of the recipes actually are. And despite her brilliance as a culinary communicator, I don’t think that simplicity is primarily due to Julia Child’s cookbook authoring; most of these dishes really are that simple. And the ingredients aren’t even hard to find or unusual. (that may be Child’s doing for 1960s America).
I think most of the fight is in changing perceptions, not in the actual dishes themselves. It’s like trying to explain to someone who loves Tex-Mex that Indian food isn’t really very different in terms of the flavors, just emphasis in different areas. Once they realize that, they usually love Indian as well. Or that good sushi isn’t more fishy than cooked fish.
A hefty fraction of Americans don’t like American haute cuisine. And would (nearly) never think to visit the sort of fancy place with a dress code where they might buy it at what seems to them to be a hefty price.
Modern or traditional French haute cuisine is seen as rich people food. Which is great if you’re rich, but famously 99% of Americans aren’t, or don’t think of themselves as.
While I think @bump’s point is excellent and insightful, I wonder if part of the problem is the 80s/90s perception about cost and portions of “haute cuisine”. For a long time in pop-culture at least, it was thought you’d go to a French or high class restaurant and be fed a sliver of meat, an artfully prepared herb/veggie as an accent, and a dollop of piped potato - something beautiful, and possibly even true/appropriate on a tasting menu, but the trope was you were paying $20+ in 80s/90s dollars for a single bite of food.
Again, for things like a tasting menu, it’s not inappropriate, or even wrong, but for a generation raised on “Super-size” or value menus (Including me!) it may be a hidden cultural disconnect from reality.
In the Pixar movie Ratatouille when renowned food critic Anton Ego orders the dish Colette objects specifically that it’s a peasant dish. Remy (In reality Thomas Keller) reimagines it as confit byaldi. Anton’s first bite takes him back to watching his mother cook, and that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it.
There’s also the fact that French haute cuisine was pretty much the default cuisine of “fine dining” restaurants up to about the 1990s, to the point where “French restaurant” pretty much became conflated with “fine dining restaurant”, which I’m sure is where the misconception that all French food is “fancy” comes from.
Fine, for haute cuisine, but most French derived food is actually eaten day to day by people all over the world, they just don’t think of it as French. A brioche bun for your burger, or a filled baguette for lunch (with some mayo or dijon), a soft omelette or a croissant for breakfast, a bearnaise sauce with your steak and fries - these are all French foods/cooking styles, it just doesn’t cross people’s minds.
Because the style is so ubiquitous, restaurants who want to distinguish themselves as authentically French feel the need to use animal proteins that are not easily sourced in the US and are actually repulsive to some Americans (ie rabbit, snails, frog legs, entrails, and foie gras.) The scarcity of these ingredients makes such a meal pricier than it would be in France.
Agree completely. As several folks have pointed out in various ways upthread.
Recall the philosophical idea of “god in the gaps”, that religion explains what science can’t yet, and hence as science expands over time, religion’s purview contracts from its once universal domain.
We (the world) now have “French cuisine in the gaps”. That which hasn’t yet been assimilated elsewhere is all that’s left to wear the increasingly rarified “French cuisine” label.
I like the cut of your jib stewpot, Mister! Your family has no sense of humor.
As a bit of trivia, the building that served as “Chuck’s Cafe” in the film Duel now houses a French restaurant. So I decided to check out their menu. I think the office firewall is blocking their website, but looking at some photos of the menu people posted online, yes, it does include a few “stereotypical French” items like calf’s liver and frog legs (but interestingly no escargot that I can see). But a lot of the entrees are essentially “piece of meat with some kind of sauce served with potatoes and vegetables”
Wow. That is quite an extensive menu for a small restaurant. 30 appetizers / soups / salads, and 47 entrees! And the location sorta out in the sticks between Lancaster and Valencia seems an unlikely spot for a place with that cuisine and price point. OTOH, they celebrated 30 years there last month, so they must be doing something right.
It’d be fun to put on a gourmet Dopefest there with the folks in this thread converging at La Chene from all over the world on some particular random Tuesday. They’d never believe us.
That too. I was about 13 and it was just the creepiest most suspenseful thing. Shook me up for awhile. Spielberg never actually showing us the truckdriver’s face, only parts of his body, was a masterstroke.
