No national cuisine can surpass the French in originality and sophistication. What is eaten in France is different from the food in other countries. Cooking is an art for the French. Each dish is prepared according to its own recipe, adding its own flavor even to well-known recipes.

French cuisine

The French brought real luxury into everyday cuisine. High towers stand out of sweet dishes. Meat, oysters, fish are placed on "pedestals". Compared to other European countries, French chefs use less dairy products. French cheeses are an exception. More than three thousand sauces are used in French dishes. All French dishes are prepared exclusively from fresh products, the quality of the products is preserved after heat treatment. French cuisine is multifaceted, in different regions of the country there may be disagreements regarding the recipes of some dishes. However, regardless of the area, French cuisine is replete with vegetables and root vegetables.

About Provence cuisine

Indispensable in Provencal cuisine are vegetables, garlic, spices: tarragon, marjoram, oregano, basil, dill, parsley, rosemary. Vegetables are used in hot and cold dishes. Vegetable dishes are prepared very satisfying, therefore sometimes they replace the main ones.

Cod, pike, halibut, carp, sardines decorate most Provencal dishes. Especially popular in France is bouillabaisse soup with small varieties of fish, seafood, vegetables, wine, spices. Mussels and oysters are in demand.

Meat in Provence is used with restraint. There are several dishes: beef stew, lamb stew, suckling pig, Parma ham, which are on the tables of the French.

Dessert in Provence is in great demand. There is always chocolate, nuts, nougat, dried fruits, cookies on the table. One of my favorite pies is clafoutis with apple-cherry-apricot filling. In any pastry shop there are always cakes, buns, cakes, marmalade, sweets, creme brulee.

About the cuisine of Burgundy

In the cuisine of Burgundy, wine is used in many dishes. Wine is added to sauces, gravies. Meat and snails are marinated in wine. Snails are served without shells, adding parsley and onions.

About Normandy cuisine

Dairy products are valued in Normandy: cream, butter, Camembert cheese. In Normandy, meat and fish are always cooked with cream. And such dishes as Normandy beef flank with cream and mushrooms and Rouen duck can only be cooked so deliciously in Normandy.

About Lorraine cuisine

Lorraine is famous for its open tarts with slices of smoked bacon or ham and melted cheese. The national dish is Alsatian cabbage stew with pork and smoked breast.

About Lyon's cuisine

Lyon cuisine is famous for its extraordinarily delicious Lyons-style gratiné onion soup. A traditional Christmas dish is fried capon with chestnuts. Capons (young cockerels) are grown in cages, which makes their meat juicy, incomparable in taste.

French dishes

Every dish prepared in France can be remembered for a lifetime. The most famous dish prepared by French chefs is frog legs. France is also famous for its cheeses, they are produced in more than 500 different varieties: hard, soft, young, aged, with a crust, with mold. Also known are the "Burgundian snail", eggs "cocotte" with extragon. National dishes such as ratatouille, julienne, baguette, croissants are known not only in France. Often they appear on the tables of Russians.

The French national drink is wine, the most famous is Bordeaux and Burgundy. Wine is served with almost every dish, and sometimes it is included in the cost of set meals. French champagne, cognac, calvados are no less famous in the world.

If you answer the question: "What do the French eat?", It turns out that they eat everything. It is home to meat lovers, vegetarians, sweet tooth, and salty lovers.

Food is a very important part of life in France. Here food is not just eaten. Here it is beautifully decorated before serving, and the dishes are served in a certain order, and not all at once.

Although French cuisine is traditional, it is influenced by other countries. For example, if before in France there were only small grocery stores, in the last 20 years huge supermarkets have appeared, where you can buy an unimaginable amount of food in one go. Previously, the French went to the bakery for bread, to the butcher for meat, and to the local market for vegetables and fruits. Now they all visit the supermarkets once a week and buy everything they need at once.

True, despite the abundance of supermarkets, for special occasions, the French still rush to stores intended to sell goods of one category. For a family celebration, many families prefer to take meat from the butcher, and baguette lovers will definitely visit the baker in the morning to crunch a French bun for breakfast.

Despite the fact that the French do not like to rush at the table, they usually eat rather quickly. They sit longer at lunch and dinner.

French breakfast

Breakfast in France is usually fairly light. The French drink coffee and do not eat the following foods:

• Tartines, which are toasts with jam.
• Croissants. They are more commonly eaten for breakfast on weekends.
• A slice of baguette with butter and jam.
• A slice of bread, fresh fruit or yogurt.
• The French prefer to have a cup of coffee before breakfast. If you order coffee in the morning in the cafe, you will be served an expresso. It is served to everyone by default. If you want a coffee with milk, that's the way to go. Coffee with milk is served in a huge bowl, and there will be really a lot of milk in it. Sometimes the French drink tea or hot chocolate in the morning.

French lunch

Lunch in France lasts about two hours. At this time, some go to a cafe where they eat a multi-course lunch and drink wine, others go home, and still others buy a couple of sandwiches from a street vendor.

• Lunch at the restaurant. The restaurant usually serves three to four dishes. These include salad, soup, main course and dessert. Often, instead of or with dessert, a cheese plate is served. Wine is usually ordered during lunch.
• Lunch at home. Those who eat at home eat a couple of hot meals. Their food is, of course, simpler and less varied than that of those who eat in a restaurant.
• Lunch on the street. If the work schedule does not allow you to go to a restaurant or go home, in France you can always buy sandwiches on the street at lunchtime. They usually consist of a cheese and ham baguette. You can also find boiled eggs, canned tuna, salami, ham and cheese separately.

French dinner

There may be different dinners on different days of the week in France. Those who dined in a restaurant during the day usually eat little. Those who had a sandwich during lunch eat heavier.

On special occasions, lunch can be quite lengthy. The table is covered with a beautiful tablecloth, decorated with flowers or candles. The dishes are placed on beautiful plates.

Despite the fact that there are no clearly defined dishes for different meals, in the restaurant and at home the French eat roughly the same food. Coffee and wine are almost essential ingredients in every meal. Tourists are always happy to taste delicious French dishes and fresh products.

Admit it, we always want to know a little more than we can. To see, at least out of the corner of my eye, how they live in the neighborhood or in other countries, what they eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner. For example, the French? They do not eat frog legs, in fact! How do the most ordinary Frenchmen make up their daily menu? I managed to stay in three completely different French families with different lifestyles and pace of life, different habits and income levels. So, France, today, three families and French cuisine as it is.

Summer in the French countryside

Guillemet and Olivier live outside the city 50 kilometers from Paris in a large two-story mansion. They have their own farm, and the office is located in a separate building near the house, therefore, what is called "torn" between home and work, they do not need. Their three children, Charles, Laurence, and Mathieu (7, 5 and 3 years old), are supervised by a nanny when their parents are at work.

Guillemet is a very caring mother and takes care of her family's nutrition very scrupulously. Every evening in a special notebook she writes down the menu for the next day. Oddly enough, it is not customary for them to have a full breakfast, as most nutritionists advise. Guillemet does not eat breakfast at all, Olivier drinks a cup of coffee, children eat cornflakes with milk or yogurt.

It is customary to sit down for dinner in the family at exactly 13.00. Guillemet even gets angry if the husband is late at work. Lunch starts with a salad - just lettuce leaves seasoned with balsamic or wine vinegar and olive oil. After necessarily meat or a fish disheg beef medallions in sun-dried tomato sauce, fish fillets baked with lemon slice and herbs. For garnish - steamed vegetables: potatoes or cauliflower.

The French don't eat soups for lunch, and for dinner this is an infrequent dish, although the word "dinner" in French sounds like le souper. Only once in a few weeks of my stay in this family I was for dinner. It's simple: zucchini, broccoli and champignons are fried separately in olive oil, then chopped in a blender. To this mixture add heavy cream, salt, pepper and slightly heat before serving.

Lunch or dinner must be completed with cheeses... A plateau is served with different types of cheeses (5-7 varieties), which can be combined with slices of French crispy baguette. It's delicious! And only after this cheese "ritual", we can assume that lunch or dinner is over.

Despite having three children, the family has a cool attitude towards sweets. For dessert, they eat fruit or the easiest homemade pies to make.

By the way, peaches in this family are customary to eat ... with a knife and fork !!! At the same time, first you need to remove the peel from the peach (again with a knife and fork), and only then, cutting off a piece, enjoy the fruit. Experiment somehow in the kitchen secretly so that loved ones do not accuse you of being too aristocratic, try a peach with a knife and fork. And, if you still have enough patience, believe me, the peach will taste completely different. Fortunately for me, five-year-old Laurence, due to her age, was also not an expert in curly slicing of peaches.

Provincial charm with an Italian accent

Anna and Joel - pensioners. They live in Bourges - in the Middle Ages, the historical residence of the French kings - in their small house, buried in flowers, with a green lawn and red maples in the yard.

The unhurried pace of life also affects the format of lunches and dinners. They eat leisurely, as if it is not just food, but something more - a ceremony or even an old tradition. Lunch starts with a snack. Most often it is traditional lettuce topped with olive oil and balsamic or wine vinegar. By the way, Joelle brings salad to dinner directly from his small vegetable garden, where strawberries, tomatoes, onions, basil and ... potatoes also grow. Yes, the elderly French are also very fond of all kinds of summer cottage affairs, but, of course, not on such a scale as our pensioners.

One day we were surprised parma ham with melon... Ripe melon, preferably chilled, is peeled from seeds and cut lengthwise into large slices. The ham is cut very thinly, almost transparent slices and laid out on a plate, put a slice of melon on top. It is believed that this dish was born in Italy, but, in my opinion, it fits very organically into a French-style lunch.

For the main course portions of rabbit are fried in a mixture of butter and olive oil until golden brown. Add the chopped onion and fry it until transparent. After that, sprinkle the rabbit meat with flour and fill it with chicken broth. Add garlic, a glass of white wine, a mixture of peppers, a handful of raisins and a sprig of rosemary. It takes about an hour to simmer under the lid. Separately mix the yolks with the cream, add a couple of tablespoons of cooled juice from the container where the rabbit was stewed, and pour this sauce over the dish. The rabbit was garnished with asparagus beans, lightly stewed in a saucepan with butter and garlic.

Traditionally, lunch ends with a cheese plate with 5-6 types of cheese to choose from. Bread in Bourges, by the way, is completely different and also unusually tasty.

Unlike the previous family with three children, the venerable Anne and Joel turned out to be those with a sweet tooth. Every day we enjoyed different delicacies. One of them is a simple French dessert with cherries. The dough is made from a mixture of milk, flour, eggs and sugar. Pitted cherries are poured with this mixture, and after 20 minutes the most delicate dessert is ready. Be sure to get a couple of cherries on a twig with a leaf. And after you take the clafoutis out of the oven, decorate the dessert with them. It's very elegant. Almost a work of art. An important detail: it is better to use cherries or red cherries, so that when baking, the juice of the berries does not stain the dough so much.

Crazy crazy metropolitan life

Daughter of Anna and Joel - Marie -has been living in Paris for a long time. She works as a teacher of French language and literature at one of the colleges in the capital. He rents a one-room apartment with his fiancé François in the Marais, one of the oldest districts of the city.

For breakfast she treats me to cereal with milk and toast with confiture., moreover, jars of jam for every taste: apricot, strawberry, blueberry. A magical taste overlooking a quiet French street and neighboring balconies with bright geraniums. But Marie admits that such measured breakfasts happen only on weekends, when there is no need to rush to work. Often the breakfast of a resident of this French metropolis consists of a cup of coffee.

An important detail

All those French lunches and dinners weren't complete without a glass of wine. The French intuitively know how to choose red or white for a dish so that sometimes it seems: your lunch or dinner is not just a set of dishes, but a clearly thought out plan in advance. A plan to conquer your taste buds.

The food system in France is directly opposite to the sensational rule: eat breakfast yourself, share lunch with a friend, and give dinner to the enemy.

The French breakfast is very modest and not without reason is called a small breakfast. (le petit déjeuner)... Most often, it is limited to a cup of coffee and a small bun, bagel or sandwich. It is interesting to note that the French prefer sweet sandwiches at breakfast - often bread with butter and jam / jam.

Lunch (in French terminology "breakfast", le déjeuner) starts at 12 noon. It usually consists of snacks, green salad, meat or fish dishes, cheese and coffee.

Evening meal, at 6 - 7 pm, called lunch (le dîner) and also provides several dishes: an aperitif, a green salad, a hot dish (meat with a side dish), a cheese plate (several types of cheese cut into small pieces and laid out on a plate specially provided for this) and coffee with sweets (often with chocolates, cookies).

The culinary traditions of the French have been preserved not only in good restaurants, but also in ordinary families. At festive family dinners, and especially at dinners with guests, you can perfectly see the main features of French cuisine.

Before lunch, guests are offered an "aperitif" - alcoholic drinks with nuts, almonds or dry biscuits - to stimulate the appetite. The actual dinner, as in the 16th century, begins with an "introduction": vegetable, meat or fish snacks. Soup is now rarely eaten, more often in the village. Fish, meat or poultry, with matching white or red wines, form the basis of a festive city meal.

Abroad, the French are considered to be frog lovers, and it is no coincidence that the French really willingly eat the tender white meat of the frog's hind legs, which tastes like chicken meat. However, for a family dinner, this is quite an expensive pleasure, so they don't eat frog legs every day.

In an ordinary French family, they most often eat a steak with chips, a stew with vegetables, a rabbit stew or. Along with beef steak, horse meat steaks are prepared, which is sold in special butcher shops.

Of the dishes exotic for the Russian people, the French love shells and snails. Some shells are eaten raw - they resemble oysters. Others are specially cooked - their meat is similar to the meat of crabs or crayfish. A very tasty dish is obtained from large grape snails "escargot": they are baked in oil with parsley and garlic and served right in the sink.

For the main family holiday - Christmas - in the old days they cooked fried wild boar. Then he was replaced by a pig, now more and more often a turkey. The Christmas table is usually decorated with a dish with oysters and a special oblong cake - "Christmas log" ... The final part of the festive lunch consists of green salad leaves, cheese, fruits, sweets and coffee. After coffee, guests are offered cognacs or liqueurs; they are collectively called "digestive" - \u200b\u200bfacilitating digestion. If the aperitif opens the festive dinner procedure, then the digestif completes it.

These are the simple traditions of an ordinary French table! Don't forget to check out our French recipes page. This is a selection of fairly simple and easy to implement culinary recipes, for which you do not have to spend a lot of money on unique spices and ingredients. You can easily cook everything yourself!

In the preparation of the article, materials from the book by V.P. Smirnov "France: traditions, people, impressions"

France is known for its beautiful language, cozy cities, gorgeous beaches and delicious food. Food in France is a cult thing. It is believed that there are 2 great cuisines in the world: classic French and Chinese. Whether or not you agree with this statement is up to you. And in this article we will look at the features of French cuisine, what any tourist should definitely try, 10 interesting and tasty dishes and 12 useful tips so as not to hit the plate on the face.

• Average cost of a meal in a French restaurant - 16 euros.
• Full lunch for one person with a glass of wine - 35 - 45 euros.

French breakfast - le petit déjeuner

© ralphandjenny / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

A traditional breakfast in France is not fancy. For breakfast, the French eat a baguette with butter and jam / cheese / pate, a croissant or bagel, or cereal. For dessert - fruit. As you can see, the dishes on the morning menu are not very diverse. Drinks include orange juice, tea, coffee or hot chocolate.

French lunch - le déjeuner

In many places in France, lunch is served from 11:30 to 13:00. Travelers tend to dine late and sometimes face refusal to serve them. Like, they came late, the guys ate everything. If you are late for lunch, then head to the self-service restaurant, where you have more chances to eat.

A traditional French lunch consists of:

• starter: salad, soup or puree soup, pate and cold snacks;
• main course: meat or fish with potatoes, rice, pasta or vegetables for a side dish;
• cheese platterand / or dessert.

Often the dessert is not on the menu and you have to listen to the waiter's suggestions. For dessert, French restaurants serve fruits, jams, ice cream, rarely baked goods, you can crush everything on top of coffee.

Dinner in french - le diner

The French have dinner between 19:30 and 20:45. TV channels adjust the start of their main evening TV programs so that they start at 20:45 - 21, when everyone has dinner.

For dinner in France, they eat lighter dishes - vegetables, soups, etc.

1. The simplest and most important advice that I give to everyone, regardless of which country a person is going to - eat where the locals eat... Usually, in France they have lunch from 12 to 13 o'clock and dinner from 20 to 21. I understand that you are on vacation and do not want to be tied to a strict schedule, but you will find the largest selection of dishes in restaurants at this time. Tourist establishments make concessions, but I do not recommend tourist restaurants to anyone - they are always more expensive and often less tasty.
2. Take business lunches... In case you don't know, this is a fixed lunch menu. You are given a choice of several sets of dishes. Each set usually contains 2 dishes and a dessert. In France they are called "le Menu du jour". Business lunches are a great way to experience French cuisine without overpaying.
3. If you want to dine like a real Frenchman, then you are supposed to first drink an aperitif, usually wine or a Kir (dry white wine and blackcurrant liqueur).
4. Bread - an integral part of the French table. The French won't start eating without a good fresh baguette.
5. But you will not find on the table paper napkins... The French use exclusively fabric. They pick them up under the tablecloth. Napkins are important too!
6. The stronger the stink cheese - the better it is.
7. The French use knives during their meals not only to cut off a piece of steak, but also to push food from the plate to the fork. So that a knife is also requiredas is the bread, as is the cheese sandwich at the end of the meal.
8. Butter in France, slightly salted.
9. In France, a slightly different understanding of the word "dessert"than in the rest of the world. Don't expect an éclair au chocolat, choux à la crème, or Paris-Brest to be brought to you in the afternoon. Most often it refers to fruit, yoghurt or jam.
10. In France, you are practically will not find vegetariansprobably they all emigrated long ago, away from the temptations of French cuisine.
11. In France, it is customary to add salt and pepper to dishes to taste. It is easy to distinguish a salt shaker from a pepper shaker, a salt shaker has several holes, a pepper shaker has one.

© kotomi-jewelry / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

Do I need to tip in French restaurants

Tipping is considered the norm in French restaurants. There is no pre-fixed cost here, so it's hard to say how much to tip. Everything feels like. A normal tip for a waiter for good service in a restaurant is 10% of the check. In cafes or self-service restaurants, usually 1-2 euros are left as an expression of gratitude.

French food every traveler should try

1. Les cuisses de grenouilles - frog legs

You can't come to France and not try frog meat. It tastes like chicken with a slight seafood flavor. The French cook frog legs with spicy herbs, it turns out very tasty. Don't brush it off until you try.

1. Foie gras - foie gras

What is definitely worth trying in France is foie gras - the liver of a specially fed duck. It is best eaten fried, but if the thought scares you, you can order foie gras pate and spread it on a baguette.

1. Escargots - snails

Another popular French dish that makes many shudder at the thought is snails. Delicious snails fried with garlic, butter and parsley. The snails are removed from the shell with a special fork. With experience it even turns out not to splash on the neighbor opposite.

© stoic1 / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

1. Boeuf tartare - beef tartare

Tartare is a dish made from raw chilled beef, egg yolk, spices, onions, capers, gherkins, and many more variations of additives. If you are taking it for the first time, then first take one dish for the company, for someone the taste may be too unusual - these are the features of French cuisine. But for many, tartare is a real delicacy.

1. Cheval or taureau - horse or bull

Or a horse and a bull. Do not rush to turn your nose up from this dish. Generously flavored with wine and orange sauce, you will remember it for a long time.

1. Any cheese you don't like at first glance

Too smelly? Too soft? Too thick mold? Spread it on a fresh butter baguette and you will sing in a completely different way.

5 proven French dishes that everyone will love

1. Croissant

Buy a croissant. Required. Fresh, still warm, tasty ... Buy and bring it to me!

1. Macaroons

Small aromatic treats with a huge range of flavors. Especially great with salty creamy caramel, but other flavors are fine. Many manufacturers have their own signature flavors.

© omarsc / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

1. French mussels

Steamed mussels with potatoes for garnish. You can eat them classic with onions and white wine, or more interesting versions with roquefort and saffron.

1. Duck

Fried and stewed duck, chopped and whole, duck liver or cassoulet with sausages and beans - everything is delicious.

1. Your favorite cheese

Don't just experiment with smelly varieties. Taste your favorite cheeses in France. Believe me, coming to the market to buy cheese from a person who probably milked the animal that gave milk for this cheese is an amazing experience.

10 unusual French dishes

This list contains all 10 dishes, but they are all unusual... I bet that most of them you never knew existed. This is not duck liver or frog legs. You can try these dishes in almost any restaurant in France. Under each dish, you will find a list of addresses of restaurants where, according to local residents, this dish is probably deliciously prepared.

1. Bouillabaisse

© colonnade / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

French bouillabaisse is a fish soup, i.e. It was once considered the food of the poor. Marseille fishermen simply cooked seafood that they could not sell. This means that the main criterion for selecting fish for bouillabaisse is its unattractiveness. Google it to find out what a scorpion fish looks like and you'll get it. But in our time, bouillabaisse has entered the restaurant menu and is considered an exquisite expensive dish. There are many variations of this soup. I do not recommend ordering bouillabaisse for less than 30 euros per plate. Often the soup is served in 2 rounds - first, broth with croutons and spicy sauce, and then a plate with 5 types of fish.

Where to try: obviously in Marseille. Delicious bouillabaisse is served at Le Miramar (official website: lemiramar.fr; £ 54) and Chez Fonfon (chez-fonfon.com; £ 46).

2. Tartiflette

© heatheronhertravels / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

Tartiflet is another striking representative of French cuisine. This is a very satisfying dish. It consists of potatoes, bacon and onions topped with Reblechon cheese. Legend has it that the poor peasants were taxed for their milk yield. The more milk a cow gives, the more you pay. The tricky people quickly adapted and began to milk the cows only half, and after checking, finish the milk to the end. Reblechon cheese was made from the leftover milk. The amount of cheese was as great as the reluctance to pay taxes. It was necessary to have something to do with it, and in 1980 they came up with a dish of the same name.

Where to try: in the Alps. The tartiflette is deliciously prepared at Calèche in Chamonix (restaurant-caleche.com; £ 16) and Chalet La Pricaz (sav.org/pricaz.html; £ 15). You can find detailed addresses on the websites.

3. Cassoulet

© wlappe / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

The cassoulet dish includes stewed white beans, sausage and pork. The result is a casserole cooked in a special pot. A crispy crust forms on top, but inside the dish is very juicy. All this splendor is sprinkled with herbs and served on the table.

Where to try: in Toulouse at Restaurant Emile (restaurant-emile.com; £ 20).

4. Beef bourguignonne

A real national dish of France with a rich history and rich taste. While the Europeans were fighting for a place in the sun, the Burgundians left the world political arena and, it seems, not in vain. But they came up with many delicious dishes. I strongly advise you not to lean on Burgundy food, otherwise you will have to dismantle the restaurant wall to get you out. I'm kidding, of course. But a hot meat dish rich in wine will not joke. Many Burgundians are chubby guys, mind you. Because it's very, very tasty.

Where to try: in Dijon, at Restaurant D "Zenvies (dzenvies.com; £ 14) and at Beursaudière (beursaudiere.com; £ 17).

5. Pissaladière

© alanchan / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

Pissaladier is the famous fish and onion pie. Contains onions, garlic, anchovies, olives and Provencal herbs. To some, it resembles an ordinary onion pie, to others a pizza. Call it what you want. It will not become less tasty from this.

Where to try: in Antibes (lepain-jpv.com).

6. Potjevleesch

© merlejajoonas / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

One of the most distinctive meat dishes in France. It is based on 4 white meats - veal, pork, rabbit and chicken, all mixed with pieces of vegetables in jelly. Serve potivlesh with gherkins, salad and chips.

Where to try: Al "Potée d" Léandre in Souchez (alpotee.fr; £ 14.50), Barbue-d "Anvers in Lille (lebarbuedanvers.fr; £ 16) and T" kasteelhof in Kassel (http://lvermeersch.free.fr/kasteelhof )

7. Potée auvergnate

© Jiel Beaumadier / CC BY-SA 4.0

Pork, sausage, bacon and vegetables are stewed together. Not haute French cuisine, of course, but this is a simple and delicious dish. Do you understand now why France is so tight with vegetarians?

Where to try: Auvergne meat is cooked well in Auvergne, which is not surprising. It is advised to go to l "Alambic in Clermont-Ferrand (alambic-restaurant; £ 14.50).

8. Choucroute

© images_improbables / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

Elsian shukrut is no joke to you. While the Latin and German worlds shook the area with conflicts, in which Alsace periodically fell, the locals spat on all this policy and began to arrange the economy. As a result, the Alsatians have spacious houses, flourishing villages and a chic national cuisine. Shukrut is a dish made from sauerkraut, sausages and pork, someone cooks it with rice, someone with potatoes. There is an option with fresh cabbage, but in my opinion it is less tasty. Caution! After a properly prepared shukrut, it is very difficult to get out of the table without assistance.

Try canonical French chukrut can be found at Chez Yvonne restaurants in Strasbourg (restaurant-chez-yvonne.net; £ 16) and at Maison Kammerzell (maison-kammerzell.com; £ 17).

9. Aioli (Grand aioli)

Aioli is the famous garlic sauce. Grand Aioli is a dish made from salted cod, carrots, potatoes, shellfish, beans, onions, artichokes and, in some varieties, beets and other vegetables. All this is seasoned with aioli sauce and washed down with rose wine.

Where to try: restaurants Maurin des Maures (maurin-des-maures.com; £ 15), Restaurant Balthazar (bistrotbalthazar.com) and Le Petit Chaudron (restaurantlepetitchaudron.fr) in Avignon.

10. Grilled oysters with champagne and saffron

What is French cuisine without shellfish? The locals love them. Oysters are especially fond of. However, the British boldly replace the classic raw clam with a grilled herb and champagne.

Where to try: Les Ormes restaurant in Barnville Carter (hotel-restaurant-les-ormes.fr; £ 12).