@@dasmeltorp4705 I made a map depicting only the most famous dishes of each "departements" (counties?) and tried but failed to stick to the rule I started with "one savoury, one sweet, one cheese, one beverage".... it was just impossible.... I used 600+ dishes for the map and still forgot some famous ones (the ones which production is protected to the area and how it's made i.e. AOC/AOP) I tried to do the same with New Zealand (where I now live) and the UK (used to live), and it was much easier (or harder because there wasn't much variety....)
@@dasmeltorp4705 Actually it's often not as much the case as in France. I'm not gonna mention any specific country but having traveled and lived in other places, many other countries have similar dishes nationwide (which can be still tasty though, don't get me wrong). And then, few to none regional variants unfortunately, even after digging as much as I could.
As someone from one of the overseas regions of France (La réunion) i have to say our local cuisine is obviously my favourite ( especially octopus curry )
J'ai passé pas mal de temps à la Réunion (ma mère est de là) et j'avoue que coté bouffe y a des trucs craqués. Après, c'est une cuisine majoritairement inspirée d'autres (en particulier Indienne et Chinoise, même si je préfère les samoussas Réunionnais que ceux Indiens, notamment le samoussa au fromage mdr), une sorte de synthèse. Avec quand même son lot de nouvelles idées.
I'm almost surprised you did not mention the (kind of) "rule" of fancy French restaurants: usually the longest the name of your dish is, the smallest in your plate it ends up to be ;)))
Loïc, I already loved your humorous shorts about languages, but you've really kicked it up a notch with these funny and informative "obsessive deep-dives" into different random topics. Thanks for your hard work and please keep these videos coming! 😃
as a breton(born breton), i have to add that buckwheat crepes(called galette de sarasin/galette de blé noir in french) can also be eaten like you would eat a pizza, as in we put a sauce on the bottom(crème frêche or tomato sauce), then you add your toppings(ham, salmon, potatoes, vegetables) with cheese on top. it's delicious and you should try it.
Galettes de sarrasin ou Ployes are also eaten in Eastern Canada ( New Brunswick, Québec, Ontario). It is part of Acadian traditional food. We eat them with butter and Maple Syrup or fresh berries or molasses or sometimes with ham, cheddar and a fried egg on top.
Heu c'est une blague ? MERCI oui je sors de chez moi, ça m'arrive fort heureusement. Mais ces sauces dans les galettes c'est comme l'ananas sur la pizza... Ça se veut moderne mais ça dénature tout. Chacun verra midi à sa porte...
@@that_milo_guy oh dear. learn something new every day. Admittedly, I should have known that. thanks for the correction. (still absolutely delicious though) 😆
@@that_milo_guy just like fries, it's both from belgium and north of France, before Belgium even existed it used to be Flanders, and the capital of the Flanders was Lille. This region has been split between france and belgium.
I always thought the French food is the result of a lucky history and geography. This relatively small country, populated by Celtic and Germanic tribes who decided to act the Latin way, has an incredible variety of landscapes and climates, from Northen Sea to Mediterranean, Atlantic Coasts, wide plains and highest mountains in Europe, giving us an incredible variety of products. During centuries, they fought against the rest of Europe, being invaded by some of them and invading most of it. The colonial empire was wide, and worldwide food enriched the local one. All these left traces, making French cuisine one of the most diverse cuisines you can eat. A good revolution on top of that, to make it all accessible to everybody, and voilà.
Maybe, but one of main reasons for me is just that France had a lot of arable lands (and lots of rivers), food production was more efficient than in the rest of Europe and thus the population was way larger than the size of France would suggest (until the early 19th century France had the same population as Russia), with one of the biggest population density in the world. Obviously all that part reversed with the (relative) demographic decline of France in the 19th century, but I think the importance of food and culinary traditions remained.
France was colonized by the Romans for around 300 years, which may be part of the reason why they "decided to act the Latin way" :D
6 месяцев назад
The last example shows the "invading of it" as it's essentially a German dish. Elsas has been under French control since the 17th century with the German and French population mostly living side by side.
@ Yes, invasions and occupations played a role in spreading food recipe among other cultural influences. François I discovered the Italian Renaissance during his immersive (and constrained) stay in Italy following the failure of the siege of Pavia. Choucroute has variants in many countries. The Chinese claim to have invented it, but they tend to do that with every other invention in the World... As for Alsace invasions, we could go back to Charles Martel's empire and claim the German stole it before :D
It's so funny that the most famous French dishes: snail and frog legs. No one ever eats it in everyday life, long live raclette guys, I couldn't live without 😋.
@@languerouge5385 In France ? where I live In my region the only time I saw it was in 1 big supermarket. I don't go to brasseries a lot, but I've never seen one.
@@alkasamariothat's strange that you don't find them 😅 even the little convenient store in my country side village sell them 😅 maybe you aren't looking at the right section ? It's commonly sell frozen and only in big supermarket somewhat fresh. (That's for snail, frog legs are harder to find I agree 😅)
@@languerouge5385 Every brasserie, no, I've never seen them. In supermarkets, it doesn't take a lot of palce in the frozen goods section, but I think they pack the shelf only when CHristmas come, it's a very celebration meal, at least from what I've seen ^^
@@remhigh Not to mention that French is a parent language of English. Even from the origins of English, French was the language spoken by the nobles and royalty and so French has always been "fancy" in comparison. In our current language, our more sophisticated languages tend to have French origins whereas our more common words tend to have germanic origins. It doesn't help that France is both a culinary and fashion (key components of culture) capital in the world.
OMG! I'm not a big fan of French gastronomy, even though the culinary technique is the best. But MAAAAAN! Confit de cannard is SUPERB! The desserts are also nice. Pretty dissapointed you didn't mention clafoutis. Cheers!
Alors vous ne connaissez rien à la cuisine je le certifie et confirme à 1 millions de fois que la cuisine française est la meilleure et je parle par expérience
To be fair, blood sausage is not exlusive to us, english eat the same thing in their traditionnal breakfasts (we're not crazy, we save it for lunch :p). It's also popular in Germany, Eastern Europe, Asia, etc... Globally, when you kill an animal, especially a pig, you have to drain his blood because the meat spoil faster if it's still bloody. But blood is still excellent food, so a lot of cultures just used it to make food, that had to be quickly eaten because blood spoil very fast ^^ Nowadays, we don't care about wasting food, so most of the blood is not used for human consumption ^^ Also, from what I've seen, you seem to have white boudin, which is another french recipe yes, and have the same name, but is not made with blood, but with meat, milk and bread. Blood boudin is black.
@@krankarvolund7771Wow! I wasn't expecting such a reply. Thank you, though. I intentionally kept my initial comment short not wanting to get into the details that our boudin isn't quite the same. And yes, I'm familiar with the English black/blood pudding. I've never had any myself, but I know many that have.
@@thefrenchspacer I haven't lived there in well over a decade, so it's hard to say. I do still hear friends talk about boudin, but frog legs were always a bit niche.
Blood sausage is great. There are a wide variety of them all over Europe. People find them gross because of the blood thing (while having no problem to eat other sausages as long as they do not know what is in them) and other loving them because they are delicious. Like, black pudding in Scotland or blood sausage and liver sausages in sauerkraut in south Germany or blood sausages that are sweet and with raisins in them (North Germany) or closer to France, a dish called Himmel und Erde (lit. Haven and Earth) which includes onions, apples and blood sausage (German, West). There are more options in other countries, but you get the picture.
@@Malik-Ibi Great. In the past people used everything and didn't throw things away. And they found ways to use it. Looks like, I have to find out recipes from South America.
Not just in Europe that blood is used in cooking, but in China there is a soup where they use blood, add salt, heat to make the blood become solid and put it in soup. It’s called 毛血旺
@@user-ve1oh9oo6w I guess it is a thing in many cultures all around the world. While we today throw many things in the trash, past generations could not afford to throw relevant sources away.
Merci for more mirthful information! I love steak frites and steak au poivre, but I was not as thrilled with the steak tartare I accidently ordered. Croque Monsieur is also good, and I cannot resist a croissant or an eclair. French sauces are also divine. My mother is from Croatia and they eat Blood Sausage there as well, and she loved it as a child. They also have a corn-fed goose and duck liver pate which is considered a more ethical version of foie gras.
3:17 fun fact: at first forks only had two spikes, and later this was assosiated with the devil's horns, so the number of spikes was increased to 3 or 4
Didn't you use a fondant au chocolat picture instead of a soufflé? You literally used the two examples with Auvergne Rhone Alpes which are argued over with the Swiss 😂 I would be interested in your thoughts on mexican and us food as you lived there. It could become a series 🤔
The French take pride in the quality of their food, in choosing between cutting costs or maintaining quality, they'll prefer the latter. Also, the produce is often of outstanding quality and grown by small-scale farmers.
"in choosing between cutting costs or maintaining quality, they'll prefer the latter." A lot of people still buy discount products and eat junk food ^^ "Also, the produce is often of outstanding quality and grown by small-scale farmers." In restaurants maybe, but most supermarket products are from large scale intesive farming. We're not immunized to modernization XD
on vous a déjà laissé le mont st michel, on peut bien garder un peu de not' cid' va ^^ Après, plus sérieusement, je crois qu'a l' origine le cidre c'était plutôt basque mais peut être ma mémoire est erroné
@@shaezbreizh86 APrés vérification, il y a une légende persistante qui dit que des auteurs de l'Antiquité citent le pays basque comme producteur du cidre... mais c'est juste une idée reçue, il n'y a pas traces de cidre ou "phitera" chez Strabon qui est souvent évoqué comme la source en question. Les romains parlent bien de Sicera, comme les grecs avant eux de Sikera et les Hébreux de Shekhar, mais ça signifie à l'époque juste "boisson fermentée", comme on dirait gnôle aujourd'hui. La première mention de cidre comme boisson fermentée à base de pomme vient de Normandie, en 1082, mais puisqu'on en retrouve aussi une pour le Pays Basque à peu près à la même époque, c'est compliqué de trancher. Globalement, c'est soit les basques, soit les Normands, probablement les deux en même temps, mais pas les Bretons, nah :p
Really, french dishes are often very simple. It's the precision and rigor of the professional chefs that makes them seem fancy and complicated. But if you half-ass the techniques at home, it will still come out as very tasty. Like, take Beef Bourguignon, a dish I've made several times. You can do it very precisely and separately cook all of the garnishes, measure all your cubes of meat, etc... Or you can throw a bunch of meat in a pot with onions and carrots, cook them a little, add wine and some beef broth to cover, let cook for several hours at low heat, and you have a perfect dish already ^^
Absolutely true. The true secret is to prepare it a day in advance and reheat it slowly for an hour or so before serving. And use decent-ish wine. For strong venison, marinate the meat overnight in wine and tasty things like spices.
5:44 May I add that 3 Michelin star mashed potatoes from Joël Robuchon is actually made of 3/4 butter and 1/4 potatoes? And yes, 'you've read it correctly: a 3rd Michelin star with mashed potatoes !
In Slovakia the beef tartar is also quite popular. Until now I never knew where the name came from. It is called either Biftek or Tatarák, now I see that the BIFTEK comes probably from beef steak, and tatarák from your tartar. And we also have blood sausages, called krvavnica, made of rice mixed with seasoning and pork blood stuffed in an actual pork intestine. There is also a bloodless version called jaternica or hurka.
@@arthelierre5448 They say that it is a reference to the Tatar soldiers who assailled the Napoleonian troops in Russia and had no time to stop for cooking and thus just slipped a beef steak under tne saddle of their horse to cook it. I other words, they ate the meat raw. That is what I was told. I cannot assure there's a true word about it.
@@theJB03 That's an explanation given by a XVIIth century explorer, but people think he just mistook the practice the Mongols had to put thin slices of meat on the wounds of their horses to protect them, with a way to eat the meat. Tatars and Mongols did ate raw meat though, and particulary grounded raw meat with eggs, which is a practice that spread in Eastern Europe, until it reached Germany and Hamburg. In Hamburg, they made a Hamburger Steack, which will give the Hamburger (although they started to cook the meat in the USA XD). And in France we adopted this dish in the 1900s, but it was called "American Steack, with a tartare sauce". Later the sauce was dropped, but we kept the name Tartare and not the American one XD
In Poland, we have our own version of Boudin Noir. We call it "Kaszanka" (you may know it as "kishka") named after "kasza", which translates to "groat", one of its ingridients.
I once searched for it, and biggest theory is that they were both invented in 2 current swiss regions, which at the time of the invention were french... well, then Savoy was italian so...
The first French cookbooks are the 14th century "Viandier", by Taillevent (personal chef of kings Charles V and VI), and the Mesnagier de Paris (anonymous)
The legend about the Tarte Tatin is just a legend. The upsided pie was a specialty of the region, and the sisters Tatin took their recipes from another cook, and probably spent days of work to improve it to the perfection it is today. These culinary legends are fun, but too often they erase the hours of work and dozens of failed trials that cooks do to improve their recipes. I work in a kitchen, when you fail a dish, it's never really a happy accident, and when you try new things, you taste them before serving them ^^'
Sometimes it's a happy mistake. One traditionnal recipe of my family is called "gâteau raté à la framboise" after some grandmother failed a recipe. And everyone loves it
c'est peut etre parce que c'est rare que lorsqu'un truc raté mérite d'être conservé et mis à la carte, l'histoire reste voire s'embellie@@krankarvolund7771
Crème Anglaise is one of my favorite things for desserts. The first time I had it was with some fresh berries. I needed to know what it was. How could something so relatively simple be so good?
It's a custard but thinner in consistency, which is why it pairs well with berries imo. Where I am from, you would usually just add vanilla ice cream. lol
I live in Reims, in the Champagne region. Some different dishes from my region are Biscuits Roses (pink biscuits), Champagne, andouillette de Troyes (basically pork guts put into other guts) and Chaource (a delicious sort of cheese).
As someone from the north of the France (Pas-De-Calais), it's a shame you didn't talk about the Carbonnade Flamande, it's so delicious. It's popular in the Flandres, and a part of the Flandres is in France
@@Adrak-Hiano C'est un genre de boeuf bourguignon mais avec de la bière à la place du vin rouge. En gros c'est boeuf, bière, carottes, pommes de terre, pain d'épices, moutarde à l'ancienne. Et oui c'est plutôt bon !
et le "tablier de sapeur" à Lyon aussi un plat de tripes très orignal. toujours à Lyon le saucisson brioché, la cervelle de canut, le gateau de foix ou encore les quenelles. Everyone coming to visit Lyon should absolutly try these at least once!
Favourite French food? That’s a hard one. Real hard. Specially with all the variety found in the different regions. From north to south, east to west, and the Italian island of Corsica… Wish you had accompanied all that with wine! But I guess that’s for another video.
WOW, I really enjoyed this video! Of course I was watching it while eating a breakfast of mixed vegetables drowned in salt and a fork lift sized helping of melted butter. Have a great weekend!
Back in the nineties I was working in the South of France. Every few weeks I would crave some simple food so at the weekend I would go to Cannes to have a McDo. The great thing was, being in France I could order a glass of red wine with my burger and fries to enjoy under the pine trees outside.
Fat doesn't make you fat. Excess sugars and carbs do. That's why French food uses butter and doesn't shy away from animal fats. Obesity isn't a problem except since the introduction of processed high carb and fried in seed oil foods.
J'aime beaucoup tes vidéo, je t'ai découvert sur les shorts qui comparent les aberrations des langues entre elles et c'était vraiment drôle et pertinent ! merci !
That dish, from the Disney movie Ratatouille, is not ratatouille. Ratatouille is a stew. The dish popularized by the movie has the same ingredients, made more visually pleasing but is not authentic.
I understand people feeling wary about eating blood but it just another thing to eat, like meat or cauliflower (gross!!!) I'm from Chile in South América, and when I was a child over 50 years ago, and health regulations were not as are today, blood was sold in the ferias (street open markets), the spiced coagulated blood looked like black jellou, and you could buy as much or little as you wished At home I was the only one whom ate it so my mom cooked a tiny bit with onions just for me, spiced blood with boiled potatoes, it was delicious Currently there's still blood sausages called Prietas, now I'm going to google how the french cook those apples to try that dish on my own
I understand this as a great rundown of french restaurant culture's history and some interesting French specialties, but i think a big reason for French food or rather French in general is seen as fancy is that the monarchy of UK and the aristocracy as well always tried to use French words to differentiate from the peasents whose hard work they devoured. Thus the fine dining in UK was also talked about in French terms giving it an aura of being the language of fine dining. And also, as aristocracy had almost a monopoly on consuming fine dining foods, those names stuck to it. This is why chicken as food is poultry, why a calf as food is veil, cow as food is beef and so on. And this gave the French language a close tie with fine dining everyone could see and hear. Similarly, French words have just taken over the culinary and hospitality world in general.
Boudin Noir (a.k.a. Black Pudding in Britain and Blutwurst in Germany) sounds horrendous at first hearing it, but it actually makes a great wintertime dish! In northern Germany, the German version of it is called Tote Oma (Dead Grandmother) to add to the appeal. 😊 Here it is served with cooked potatoes and (You were waiting for it:) Sauerkraut. The sausage is cut into slices and fried until the slices start to break up, then some water is poured over the whole and it turns into a sauce. Some sauce thickener for a nicer consistency is usually required. Potatoes are peeled and cooked with some salt, Sauerkraut is heated in a separate pot. (Secret tip from a person with not table manners whatsoever: When you have all ingredients on the table, squish the potatoes with your fork, then put a mix of the sauce and potato on the fork and pick up some Sauerkaut with it. The mix of the intense salty and rich taste of the Blutwurst, the sweetness of the potato and the fruity-sour note the Sauerkraut adds makes you forget every bit of weirdness of how this dish came to be or what it's named. It is a delight!) And yes, in winter you really feel this high power food stoke your fire up. The tons of vitamin C the Sauerkraut has are also helpful during that season. 🤗 Possibly as a rudiment of the French occupation in the early Nineteenth century, the Rhineland region has its version of Steak Tatar: Mettbrötchen. Raw hacked pork that has been spiced with salt and pepper mixed into it, served on a half bun with some raw onion rings or diced onion on top. I never could imagine eating anything like that myself. Until I did. It's addictive. ☺ In Cologne, it's one of the traditional foods to go with beer in taverns (Kneipen).
This subject is something I have given great consideration and I just cant decide! In my mind there are three cuisines worth the name. French, Italian, Chinese. I just can’t decide! But the very best meal I ever had was French. Blow-torched spinal neurons as an entree, and it was bloody good!
Actually . French cuisine and Italian cuisine are very nuch on par with each other, we got to give credits to our neighbours.. well our southern neighbours, to the north they only make waffles, fries and tasteless cheese.
Ok next small funny anecdote about taverns and inns: we still say « qui dort dine », nowadays it means you won’t go hungry if you’re sleeping but it was actually a rule applied in inns: you were required to sleep there in order to eat. Because legally it was forbidden to charge for food. So inns came up with the rule that they’d charge only the bed but it would include food. That’s a long way from restaurants
See Ottoman Empire and janissaries for the parallel between food and army. Ranks and emblems were chosen from cooking tools. Revolutions happened when a cooking pot was turned upside down
Thanks so much for the video ! Last comment about what makes French cuisine special: my friend makes sourdough bread in Turkey. In France flour is described according to its content and the way its grinded (from T45 to T150), in Turkey it’s merely « flour for bread » or « flour for cakes » etc… also the verb to knead has at least 3 counterparts in French according to the technique and step of the bread making process. Again. Thank you for your work !
Roman legionnaries were NOT paid in salt ^^ They received salt as a part of their daily rations, and when that part cas cut out and replaced by money, they called that a "salary", salarium in latin. But romans ahd coins, they did not practice barter, so legionaries would have never accepted to be paid in salt XD
After a little search on the Wiki, there are few places where nobody eats blood sausages (black pudding) and those are obviously Muslim countries! Most European countries, Latin America, Africa and Asia have different varieties of blood sausages. Even Cajun food have their own one.
@@REMPLACEMENT-TV-2technically they are from both bc french fries were invented in the part of Flanders(I think) that was occupied by France at the time so french fries are both french and Belge
Blood Sausages, here in the Philippines we also have blood-related dish that is well loved by alot of Filipinos. Its Dinuguan (Pork Blood Stew/Blood Pudding Stew) Its a savory, darkish brown stew from some sort of gravy made from pig blood, garlic, chili (usually the long chili), and vinegar. And usually includes pork offal (pork organs, usually the lungs, kidneys, intestines, ears, heart and snout) It's definitely tasty and savory, was not my favorite food when I was a kid, but grew up overtime as an adult (especially after learning it was pigs blood) It has vinegary, savory, with a bit of spice taste to it, with texture like porridge or pudding. Great added onto a bowl of newly cooked and steaming rice. Obviously, not all people eat it. You can also kinda find this dish in almost every Filipino small and family run restaurants here, called Carinderia As well as Filipino restaurants all across the globe, but not on Middle Eastern countries usually.
The French in me can't help but butt in. How did you choose to select two dishes of Savoie to represent Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, especially considering Lyon is the gastronomy capital of France? And more importantly, two dishes that are clearly Swiss and not French. The choices for the region were many and if I had to pick two, I would have chosen gratin dauphinois and quenelles sauce nantua (il y a aussi les bugnes mais ça c'est que pour mardi gras). So many more yummy dishes since that region is massive and literally encompasses way too many departments.
That's a lot of work and research you put here 🤗 amazing video ! Maintenant j'ai envie de manger 😌 peut etre que je devrais me faire un pigeon 😌 (if you haven try it yet you should 😉)
Hi Loic, I'm an American. Like yourself, I assume. I'm a fan of your channel and I've watched a lot of your videos and enjoyed them for their creativity and humor. I also have been to both France and Italy and I enjoyed the food culture in each one. I would say that both French and Italian food are amazing for Americans, I think Italian food is a little bit better. One thing that amazed me about French food is the quality of the bread and how it changes sandwiches. Also, in your video, you didn't say if the French McDo is superior in taste and quality to our American original. Anyway, you are probably barking up the wrong tree. How much thought have you put into Chinese or Indian food? First, Chinese. They don't have many cows, so beef is more precious. They cut it into strips, put it in wontons, use it as a soup base or use it on skewers to allow you to taste it, without using as much meat. They take advantage of cheap meat by using corn starch to soften it up. They are also more conscious of the contrasting colors of food. Their spoons are wider and deeper, so you can get more into your mouth or even take two bites. Their woks function at high heat, to give a nice smoky flavor to food without any chemicals. Their available land to feed so many people is limited, so they use rice, which produces a high yield with little space and also eat more fish. They don't bring knives to the table, instead they have a tool which is like needle nose pliers. So, every dish must be chopped into bite sized pieces, meaning the diner feels more like a guest and doesn't have to do the work of cutting their food. Great for a lazy man like myself. And also more peaceful and elegant. Having knives at the table is bad symbolism to the Chinese. Now, onto Indian food. 1/3rd of the country is vegetarian. Instead of beans, they use lentils, which cook (a lot) faster. They eat a lot of rice, and have all sorts of creative sauces to go with it. You don't need any silverware, because you pick up your food and eat it with your hands. Isn't that gross? No, you grab a piece of bread, that adds greater dignity to eating with your hands. So, every meal is more down to earth and doesn't need a table or anything to have dignity. I don't know why you gave it that title. Why not just say French food is good or French food is wonderful. Calling it the best is harder to prove and it isn't like you went into a list of reasons. Anyway, take care and keep making great videos!
Super vidéo et super format en générale. Pour ma part c'est tartiflette mon plat préféré. Hâte de voir une 2ème voire 3ème partie, il y a clairement assez de matos. Une vidéo en français des plats britanniques, ça peut être assez drôle aussi et peut-être qu'on découvrirait des bonnes choses, sait-on jamais.😂
We have the ancient Greeks and Romans to thank for edible snails. They brought "helix pomatia" to France and Britain 2000 years ago. Snails are possibly the first creature to be 'domesticated' by paleolithic humans.
I lived in Normandy my whole life. I've never heard of Camembert and Scallops ^^' If you've asked me a normande recipe, I'd say Escalope à la Normande, a scalloped white meat (usually turkey) with a cream and mushroom sauce. And we also have great apples and great ciders like Brittany. There's a little rivarly with Britanny here, they have the same weather than us, the same agriculture, a lot of the same food, and they try to claim our most prestigious youristic site XD But yeah, Camembert is THE normand thing, just as a cheese, or roasted with honey and nuts ^^
Like usual, c'était excellent dans la forme et le fond. Avec cuisine Créole or the cajun's one, ça finirait en reportage d'une heure. Mais je reste sur ma faim : un petit short pour les desserts en plus s'iou plait ? -Paris-Brest, Crème " "anglaise" " and the Kouign-amann "the fattiest pastry in all of Europe." (New York Times) ^^
You can't Mention French cusine without mentioning butter. Be it a sweet dessert or a rich savory dish what makes them so good is butter. And french butter is good (most of European butter is good). In Itally and Greece it's olive oil, in France - it's all about butter.
As a child (during a camping trip) I refused to eat frog legs; however, many years later at a casino In Louisiana I finally ate some. They were very good, and if I'm ever in France, I would eat them again.
One remark about medieval times: Spices were indeed expensive, but salt was definitely not. It's a wide spread myth and absolutely makes no sense when you consider that a human needs 3 - 5 g Salt per Day to survive. So, peasants definitely had and used salt and otherwise simply relied on local herbs instead of oriental spices. Also, the chestnut diet for pigs was very common throughout central Europe in medieval times.
No Salt was an expensive product because they used to many food preparation and to preserve food The roman legions was paid with salt to exemple (in the word "salary", in french "salaire" come directly from latin "salarium" who means salt ration)
@@chilpericl6884 you just wrote salt was expensive because everybody used it in big amounts. How can it be used in big amounts if it is expensive? The roman legion was first of all not in medieval times. And you wrote it yourself, it was a salt ration to be used on their travels. The salt was only a part if their salary, or do you have a source telling us they only got salt? Would be interesting how much it was.
@@1989Azrael In my memory this a ration of salt for a month (probably a little more because it is used to barter to) And no, salt is not a current product, it's a important product for the food conservatio (and excuse me for my bad english, I'm french and I don't used an automatic translator)
@@chilpericl6884 sure it was and is important for food conservation. But it would not have been used for that if it was expensive. Preserving food with salt was done throughout all social levels.
@@1989Azrael But it was very used for that and that precisely why it was expensive, because the resource was limited and there are many users A product is expensive if it is rare or in high demand
8:35 That story can not be fully true. The Escargot de Bourgogne (Helix pomatia) was bred in Southern Germany, especially in the region of the Swabian Jura, at least since medieval times and exported from there to all of Europe. Actually many of the typical "French" dishes were invented either in neighboring countries or in the originally not French speaking provinces (like Bretagne, the Alsace, the Languedoc and the Provence) and brought by chefs from those regions to the Royal Court in the 16th and 17th century. (Foie Gras for example comes originally from the Alsace, quiches from the Lorraine (and from the word "kichel" in Lorraine Franconian, meaning cake). Variations of boudin noir, which seems to originate mainly from Burgundy, are known all over Europe (Germans e.g. know many variations of "Blutwurst" = blood sausage and "Schwarzwurst" = black sausage, which is smoked and dried))
"Foie Gras for example comes originally from the Alsace" The first people to make foie gras were Egyptians 4 500 years ago ^^ The first recipe of pâté de foie gras came from Alsace, becaue the Jews maintained a long tradition of overfeeding geeses, because they needed their fat to cook without the pork fat used by the other persons ^. But there's the same tradition in all over Europe including Hungary or Germany. But now, the best foie gras come from Périgord and are made from ducks rather than geeses ^^ "That story can not be fully true." These culinary legends never are. Seriously, do you really believe a cook would try to serve snails to an emperor in diplomatic visit? XD
I am from Lyon region and here it's the land of pork and charcuterie. So you have le Jésus a giant saucisson, la rosette lyonnaise another type of saucisson, le saucisson brioché, a saucisson cooked in a brioche, la salade lyonnaise, le pâté en croûte, les quenelles nature or quenelles de brochet, etc... And don't forget wine with the Beaujolais and Côte Rôti. Paul Bocuse, one of the greatest French chef of all times is from Lyon. So if you love French cuisine, come to Lyon, you won't be desappointed.
