98 Fun Facts About French Food

In what year did UNESCO list the 'gastronomic meal of the French' as intangible heritage?

UNESCO inscribed the 'gastronomic meal of the French' on its intangible cultural heritage list in November 2010; the listed meal runs aperitif, starter, main course, cheese and dessert, with matched wines.

Which chef divided the professional kitchen into stations with the 'brigade system'?

Auguste Escoffier organised the kitchen into stations under chefs de partie, the brigade de cuisine, while running the Savoy and Carlton kitchens in London; his Guide Culinaire appeared in 1903.

Escoffier created the dessert Peach Melba in 1893 in honour of an Australian who was what?

Nellie Melba also gave her name to Melba toast; Escoffier worked with hotelier César Ritz at the Savoy and Carlton in London.

The croissant descends from the kipferl, a crescent-shaped pastry from which country?

August Zang, an Austrian artillery officer, opened a Viennese bakery on the rue de Richelieu in Paris in 1838 or 1839.

Which four ingredients may a French 'baguette de tradition' contain?

The 1993 'décret pain' limits a baguette de tradition française to wheat flour, water, yeast or sourdough, and salt, with no additives and no freezing at any stage of production.

About how long is a standard baguette?

A standard baguette runs about 65 cm long and 5 to 6 cm across, weighing roughly 250 g; a thinner, shorter loaf is a ficelle, and some loaves are baked up to a metre long.

Bouillabaisse, the saffron fish stew, originated in which port city?

Bouillabaisse comes from Marseille, where fishermen stewed the bony rockfish, such as rascasse, that they could not sell; local restaurateurs codified the recipe in a 1980 charter.

What is rouille, the sauce served with bouillabaisse?

Rouille is a garlic and saffron mayonnaise, thickened with olive oil and often bread or egg yolk and sharpened with cayenne; its name means 'rust', for its orange colour.

Cassoulet takes its name from the cassole, which is what?

The cassole is a deep, sloping earthenware cooking pot, traditionally thrown in the village of Issel near the Montagne Noire; beans and meats bake slowly in it until a crust forms.

Which town in the Aude department is regarded as the birthplace of cassoulet?

Castelnaudary claims cassoulet was born during a Hundred Years' War siege, when townsfolk pooled beans and meats into one pot; its Grande Confrérie du Cassoulet was founded in 1970.

Coq au vin is traditionally made with red wine from which region?

The classic coq au vin is braised in red Burgundy with lardons, mushrooms and pearl onions; Alsace makes a white version with Riesling and the Jura uses its vin jaune.

Ratatouille is a traditional dish of which French region?

The name comes from the Occitan ratatolha and the verb touiller, to stir; Pixar's 2007 film made it famous worldwide.

Which snail species is known as the Roman snail or escargot de Bourgogne?

Helix pomatia, the Roman snail or escargot de Bourgogne, is the large pale-shelled species classically served in garlic and parsley butter; its wild collection is restricted in France, so most are farmed or imported.

A macaron shell is made from egg whites, sugar and which ground ingredient?

Macaron shells are made from finely ground almonds, icing sugar and whipped egg whites, piped and rested so they bake with a smooth top and a ruffled 'foot'.

Which Paris pâtisserie is often credited with inventing the double-decker macaron?

Pierre Desfontaines of Ladurée usually gets the credit, though a baker named Claude Gerbet also claimed the invention.

Add a fried or poached egg on top of a croque monsieur and it becomes a croque what?

A croque madame is a croque monsieur topped with a fried or poached egg, said to resemble a lady's hat; the ham-and-cheese sandwich itself appeared on Paris café menus around 1910.

A traditional quiche Lorraine contains cream, eggs and bacon but NOT which ingredient often added today?

The original quiche Lorraine was an open tart of eggs, cream and smoked bacon; Gruyère cheese is a later addition, and with cheese the dish is technically a quiche vosgienne.

Tarte Tatin, the upside-down caramelised apple tart, is named after two sisters who ran what?

Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin's hotel was in Lamotte-Beuvron; the name was applied later by the food writer Curnonsky and Maxim's.

The earliest known recipe for crème brûlée appears in a cookbook by François Massialot from which year?

François Massialot printed the first known crème brûlée recipe in 1691, in Le Cuisinier roïal et bourgeois; Trinity College, Cambridge later served a similar 'burnt cream' with its crest branded into the sugar.

The blue cheese aged in the Combalou caves of southern France is made from the milk of which animal?

Only cheese aged in those caves may use the name, and the milk comes exclusively from Lacaune ewes.

Which cheese received France's very first Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, in 1925?

Roquefort was protected by a law of 26 July 1925, the first French cheese appellation; the blue veins in the cheese come from the mould Penicillium roqueforti, traditionally grown on rye bread.

Camembert comes from which French region?

Camembert is from the village of Camembert in Normandy's Orne department, where legend says farmer Marie Harel first made it in 1791; the round poplar box that let it travel was introduced in 1890.

Which French PDO cheese has the largest annual production, about 65,000 tonnes?

Comté, from the Jura massif, is France's biggest-volume PDO cheese, with output passing 60,000 tonnes a year; it is made in village cooperative dairies called fruitières from the Montbéliarde breed of cow and aged in large wheels.

Which three grapes make up nearly all Champagne?

Champagne is made almost entirely from Pinot noir, Pinot meunier and Chardonnay; the other permitted varieties, such as Arbane and Petit Meslier, cover well under one percent of the vineyard.

What is the muselet on a bottle of Champagne?

The muselet is the wire cage twisted over the cork, patented by Adolphe Jacquesson in 1844; it holds back roughly five to six atmospheres of pressure and is opened with six half-turns of the tab.

The Michelin Guide was first published in 1900 by a company that made what?

André and Édouard Michelin, whose Clermont-Ferrand company made tyres, gave away nearly 35,000 copies of the 1900 guide to encourage motoring; restaurant stars only arrived in 1926.

In the Michelin Guide, three stars officially mean a restaurant is what?

Michelin's three stars mean 'exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey'; two stars are 'worth a detour' and one is 'very good cooking'; the three-tier hierarchy was adopted in 1931 and the Bib Gourmand in 1997.

Julia Child co-wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking with Simone Beck and which other Frenchwoman?

Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck had begun the book for American readers before Julia Child joined them in Paris; Knopf published volume one in 1961, and the 2009 film Julie & Julia returned it to the bestseller list.

Which of these is one of the five French mother sauces?

Velouté, a light stock thickened with a blond roux, is one of Escoffier's five mother sauces alongside béchamel, espagnole, tomate and hollandaise; Carême's earlier list of four had allemande rather than tomate and hollandaise.

Béchamel sauce is made by thickening which liquid with a white roux?

Béchamel is milk whisked into a white roux of butter and flour and simmered until smooth, often infused with onion, bay and nutmeg; it is the base of a croque monsieur's topping and of sauce Mornay.

In 1856 Jean Naigeon changed Dijon mustard for good by replacing vinegar with what?

Jean Naigeon substituted verjuice, the sour juice of unripe grapes, for the vinegar in Dijon mustard in 1856; modern Dijon mustard imitates that acidity with white wine or a wine-vinegar mix.

French law defines foie gras as the fattened liver of which two birds?

A 2006 law (Code rural article L654-27-1) defines foie gras as the liver of a duck or goose fattened by gavage and declares it part of France's protected cultural and gastronomic heritage.

Which tea-dipped French cake triggers the narrator's memories in Proust's In Search of Lost Time?

The madeleine, a shell-shaped sponge cake from Commercy in Lorraine, dipped in lime-blossom tea, unlocks the narrator's childhood at Combray in Swann's Way, the first volume of Proust's novel.

The gratinéed onion soup we know today became a fixture in the 19th century at which Paris market?

Soupe à l'oignon gratinée was a staple of the all-night bistros around Les Halles, the central Paris wholesale market, feeding porters before dawn and revellers after it; Au Pied de Cochon became its best-known address.

A galette des rois is eaten around Epiphany and hides a small charm called what?

The fève, originally a real fava bean and now a porcelain charm, is baked into the frangipane-filled puff pastry; whoever finds it in their slice is crowned king or queen for the day.

The word soufflé comes from a French verb meaning what?

Soufflé is the past participle of souffler, to blow or puff, for the way beaten egg whites expand it in the oven; Marie-Antoine Carême popularised the dish in the early 1800s.

The famous 1855 classification of Bordeaux wines was ordered by which ruler for the Paris Exposition?

Napoleon III asked the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce to rank the region's wines for the 1855 Exposition Universelle in Paris; brokers graded the Médoc reds and Sauternes by price into five growths.

Which estate was promoted to Bordeaux first-growth status in 1973, the only change to the 1855 list?

Château Mouton Rothschild was raised from second to first growth in 1973 after decades of lobbying by Baron Philippe de Rothschild, joining Lafite, Latour, Margaux and Haut-Brion; agriculture minister Jacques Chirac signed the decree.

The bûche de Noël is a Christmas dessert designed to look like what?

The bûche de Noël is shaped and decorated to look like a log, recalling the Yule log burned on the fire at Christmas; a rolled sponge with buttercream, it appeared in the 19th century.

What is the minimum age of the youngest brandy in a Cognac labelled V.S.O.P.?

V.S.O.P. (Very Superior Old Pale) cognac must contain no eau-de-vie younger than four years in oak; V.S. requires two years, and X.O. rose from six to ten years in 2018.

Cognac must be distilled twice in stills made of which metal?

Cognac is double-distilled in copper pot stills, the alambic charentais, then aged at least two years in Limousin or Tronçais oak; the base wine is mostly Ugni blanc.

Savoury Breton galettes are traditionally made with flour from which grain?

Breton galettes are made with buckwheat flour, called blé noir or sarrasin, a crop that thrived on the peninsula's poor acid soils; sweet crêpes are made with white wheat flour.

Crêpe Suzette is flambéed with orange peel and which liqueur, usually?

Crêpe Suzette is finished in a sauce of butter, sugar, orange juice and zest, then flamed with Grand Marnier, the cognac-based orange liqueur; Henri Charpentier claimed to have invented it by accident in Monte Carlo in 1895.

Steak tartare was originally known in early 20th-century Europe by what name?

Early 20th-century menus listed raw minced beef as steak à l'Américaine; Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire described 'tartare' as that dish served with tartar sauce, and the Tatar-horsemen origin story is a later myth.

Pot-au-feu is traditionally served as two courses. What comes first?

Raymond Blanc calls it the most celebrated dish in France, eaten with coarse salt, mustard, gherkins and horseradish.

Which former mayor of Nice begged cooks never to put boiled potato in a salade niçoise?

Jacques Médecin, mayor of Nice from 1966 to 1990, wrote in his 1972 book Cuisine Niçoise that the salad must contain no cooked vegetable; Escoffier, born near Nice, had added potatoes and green beans.

Kouign-amann, the caramelised laminated pastry, is a speciality of Douarnenez in which region?

Kouign-amann, Breton for 'butter cake', was created in Douarnenez, Brittany, around 1860, reputedly by baker Yves-René Scordia; the classic recipe is 40 percent dough, 30 percent butter and 30 percent sugar.

Bordeaux's canelés are baked in fluted metal moulds traditionally brushed with what?

Canelé moulds are coated with beeswax, often mixed with butter, which sets the dark caramelised crust; the cakes are said to have originated with the nuns of the Couvent des Annonciades in Bordeaux.

Poulet de Bresse, the only poultry with an AOC, shows the French tricolour how?

An 18th-century gastronome allegedly called it 'the queen of poultry, the poultry of kings'; only about 1.2 million are raised a year.

The cooking school Le Cordon Bleu takes its name from the blue ribbon of which French order?

The Order of the Holy Spirit, founded by Henri III in 1578, hung its cross from a wide blue ribbon, the cordon bleu, which became slang for excellence; Marthe Distel's magazine gave the school its name in 1895.

Fernand Point's celebrated restaurant La Pyramide stood in which town on the Rhône?

Fernand Point ran La Pyramide in Vienne, on the Rhône south of Lyon, from 1923 until his death in 1955; his kitchen trained a generation of chefs who went on to define nouvelle cuisine.

The name éclair, for the choux pastry, is French for what?

Éclair means 'flash of lightning' in French, possibly because the glossy pastry is eaten in a flash; the name replaced the older pain à la duchesse around the 1850s.

Which gastronome wrote 'Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are' in 1825?

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, a lawyer and judge, published the aphorism in his Physiologie du goût in 1825, two months before his death; cheesemonger Henri Androuët named a triple-cream cheese after him in the 1930s.

For how many years did Paul Bocuse's restaurant near Lyon hold three Michelin stars?

L'Auberge du Pont de Collonges held three stars for 55 years, from 1965 until Michelin demoted it to two in January 2020, two years after Bocuse's death; the Bocuse d'Or competition he founded in 1987 bears his name.

Absinthe was nicknamed 'la fée verte'. What does that mean?

Banned in France in 1915, it was only fully legal again after a Senate vote in 2011; adding water clouds it in the 'louche'.

Vichyssoise, the chilled leek and potato soup, is usually credited to Louis Diat working in which city?

Louis Diat, chef at the Ritz-Carlton in New York, served the chilled soup from 1917 and named it after Vichy, the spa town near his Bourbonnais birthplace of Montmarault.

The Périgord black truffle grows underground in partnership with the roots of which trees?

Tuber melanosporum grows in a mycorrhizal partnership with the roots of oaks and hazels on limestone soils, leaving a bare 'brûlé' around the tree; trained dogs and pigs sniff out the ripe truffles in winter.

Which country disputes with France the claim to have invented french fries?

Belgium claims fried potatoes were eaten along the Meuse near Namur by the 1680s, while France points to Paris street vendors of the 1780s; Thomas Jefferson served 'potatoes in the French manner' in 1802.

The word ratatouille comes from Occitan and French verbs meaning what?

Touiller means to stir or toss; ratatouille comes from the Occitan ratatolha and the French ratouiller, an expressive form of touiller, so the name describes a stirred-together stew of vegetables.

The ring-shaped Paris-Brest pastry was created in 1910 to commemorate what?

Louis Durand, a pâtissier in Maisons-Laffitte, created the wheel-shaped choux ring filled with praline cream in 1910 at the request of Pierre Giffard, founder of the Paris-Brest-Paris bicycle race.

A traditional Limousin clafoutis is baked with which fruit, stones left in?

Limousin clafoutis is made with whole black cherries, stones left in because the kernels lend a faint almond note; the name may come from the Occitan clafir, to fill.

In south-western France a pain au chocolat is known by what name?

In the south-west, from Bordeaux to Toulouse, the pastry is a chocolatine; Quebec uses the same word, and in 2018 the Assemblée nationale rejected an amendment to give the name legal standing.

A croquembouche, the choux tower bound with caramel, is traditionally served at what?

The name means 'crunches in the mouth'; it also turns up at baptisms and First Communions.

The small rectangular financier cake is said to be shaped to resemble what?

The financier's rectangular shape mimics a gold bar; in the 1890s pâtissier Lasne, near the Paris Bourse, adapted the Visitandine nuns' little cakes for stockbrokers who wanted a snack that would not crumble in a pocket.

The gâteau Saint-Honoré is named for the patron saint of which trade?

Saint Honoré, a 6th-century bishop of Amiens, is the patron saint of bakers and pastry cooks; the cake was created in 1847 at the Chiboust bakery on rue Saint-Honoré in Paris.

Charles de Gaulle asked how anyone could govern a country with how many kinds of cheese?

The figure 246 comes from Newsweek's 1962 report of de Gaulle's lament about governing a country with so many cheeses, a jab at the Fourth Republic's fractious parties; it is the version quoted most.

French law releases Beaujolais nouveau at one minute past midnight on which day?

Since 1985 the release has been the third Thursday in November at 12:01 am, replacing the fixed 15 November date set in 1951; the Gamay wine is bottled only weeks after harvest.

In an île flottante, what floats on the crème anglaise?

A poached or baked meringue floats on crème anglaise, often topped with threads of spun caramel; œufs à la neige is the cousin with spoon-sized poached meringues.

Confit de canard, a Gascon speciality, preserves duck legs by cooking and storing them in what?

The salt-cured legs are poached slowly in their own rendered fat and then stored under it, which sealed out air and kept the meat for months before refrigeration; potatoes fried in that fat are pommes sarladaises.

The trou normand is a small glass of Calvados drunk when?

The trou normand is a small glass of Calvados apple brandy drunk between courses of a long meal to 'make a hole' (trou) for the next dish; restaurants often pour it over apple sorbet.

The Mère Poulard omelette was devised to feed hungry travellers arriving where?

Annette Poulard opened her inn at the foot of Mont-Saint-Michel in 1888, whipping eggs hard and cooking them in plenty of butter over a wood fire for pilgrims who had crossed the bay on foot.

Tartiflette, the Savoyard potato and bacon bake, is made with which cheese?

It only reached ski-resort menus in the 1980s, pushed by the Reblochon trade syndicate to sell more cheese.

Aligot from the Aubrac plateau is mashed potato beaten with which ingredient?

Fresh tomme, a young unpressed cheese from the Aubrac, is melted into the purée with butter, cream and garlic and beaten until it stretches into ribbons; the Aubrac monks served it to pilgrims bound for Santiago.

A classic mille-feuille has how many layers of puff pastry?

A classic mille-feuille stacks three layers of puff pastry with two layers of crème pâtissière between them; the pastry itself, folded six times in three, runs to 729 leaves, hence the name 'thousand leaves'.

The Mont Blanc dessert is a nest of sweetened vermicelli made from which nut?

Sweetened chestnut purée is pressed through a sieve into vermicelli strands and piled around whipped cream; Escoffier's 1903 Guide Culinaire advised heaping the cream irregularly to imitate a snowy mountain.

Neufchâtel, one of France's oldest cheeses, is traditionally sold in which shape?

Neufchâtel, from the Pays de Bray, is moulded as a heart (cœur de Bray); legend says local girls gave heart-shaped cheeses to English soldiers during the Hundred Years' War.

Green Chartreuse is made by Carthusian monks from how many plants?

Green Chartreuse is made from 130 plants, flowers and herbs macerated in alcohol following a 1605 manuscript given to the order; only two monks know the full recipe.

Sweet Sauternes owes its flavour to grapes shrivelled by what?

Botrytis cinerea concentrates Sémillon and Sauvignon blanc; George Washington ordered 30 dozen bottles of Château d'Yquem after Jefferson let him taste it.

Lyon's quenelles de brochet are dumplings made from which fish?

Pike (brochet) flesh, full of fine forked bones, is pounded smooth with panade and butter and poached into light dumplings; crayfish-based sauce Nantua, named for the Ain town, is the classic partner.

Diners ordering pressed duck at Paris's La Tour d'Argent receive what?

Each pressed duck comes with a numbered certificate; owner Frédéric Delair began numbering the birds in 1890, the future Edward VII received number 328, and the millionth duck was served in 2003.

Which actress suggested the name tarte tropézienne for Alexandre Micka's cream brioche?

Brigitte Bardot tasted Alexandre Micka's brioche while filming And God Created Woman in Saint-Tropez in 1955 and proposed calling it 'la tarte de Saint-Tropez'; Micka registered the name La Tarte Tropézienne as a trademark in 1973.

Why did Parmentier post guards round his potato field by day but withdraw them at night?

The pharmacist had learned to eat potatoes as a Prussian prisoner of war; France had banned the crop in 1748 on fears it caused leprosy.

The rum baba reached France through Lorraine thanks to an exiled king of which country?

Stanisław Leszczyński, the deposed king of Poland who became Duke of Lorraine, is said to have soaked a dry kugelhopf in sweet wine; his pâtissier Nicolas Stohrer followed his daughter Marie to Versailles in 1725.

Calissons d'Aix are a paste of ground nuts and which candied fruit, under royal icing?

Calissons are a paste of ground nuts and candied melon, with a little candied orange peel, on a wafer base under royal icing; they are blessed each September at Saint-Jean-de-Malte, a custom from a 1630 plague vow.

The bright orange Mimolette was created under Louis XIV to replace which foreign cheese?

Mimolette was made around Lille in the 1600s as a French stand-in for Dutch Edam after Colbert's tariffs hit imports; its pitted rind comes from cheese mites added on purpose, which led US customs to block it in 2013.

Legend says an angry emperor lopped the top off Valençay cheese, leaving what shape?

Valençay is a truncated, flattened pyramid of ash-coated goat's cheese about 7 cm tall; the legend says Napoleon, back from his failed Egyptian campaign, sliced the point off with his sword at the château.

French gourmets traditionally eat the tiny ortolan bunting with what over their heads?

Diners drape a napkin over their heads, said to hide the act from God and trap the aroma, and eat the bird whole; France banned ortolan hunting in 1999, and Mitterrand ate one at his last dinner in 1995.

Bêtises de Cambrai, boiled sweets said to have been made by mistake, are what flavour?

Bêtises de Cambrai are mint-flavoured boiled sweets with a caramel stripe; bêtise means a blunder, and the rival makers Afchain and Despinoy both claim an apprentice's 1830s mistake created them.

Who crowned Brie de Meaux the 'king of cheeses' at the Congress of Vienna in 1815?

Talleyrand, France's envoy at the Congress of Vienna, is said to have staged a cheese contest among the diplomats in 1815 in which Brie de Meaux was proclaimed 'roi des fromages'; it is made in Seine-et-Marne.

Crottin de Chavignol, the Loire goat cheese, shares its home village with which wine?

Chavignol is a hamlet of the commune of Sancerre in the Cher, so the goat's cheese and the Sauvignon blanc wine share the same slopes; crottin may refer to the small clay lamp, or crot, the cheese resembles.

Unlike Cognac, Armagnac is traditionally distilled how?

Armagnac is traditionally distilled once, continuously, in the small alambic armagnacais column still, leaving more flavour compounds and a rustic edge; documented from 1310, it is France's oldest brandy, made from Gascon grapes such as Baco and Ugni blanc.

Which critic coined 'nouvelle cuisine' in the restaurant guide he launched with Christian Millau?

Henri Gault and Christian Millau launched their guide in 1972 and in a 1973 issue proclaimed 'Vive la nouvelle cuisine française', ten commandments for lighter cooking; Bocuse claimed the term first described food served on Concorde's 1969 maiden flight.

Jura vin jaune is bottled in a squat clavelin holding how much?

The clavelin holds 62 cl, said to be what remains of a litre after six-and-a-quarter years of evaporation under a yeast veil in the barrel; EU rules grant the odd size a special exemption.

Béarnaise sauce was reportedly first served in 1836 at the opening of a restaurant where?

Chef Collinet, also credited with puffed potatoes, served the sauce at the 1836 opening of the Pavillon Henri IV in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the restaurant named for the king born in Béarn, hence 'béarnaise'.

Livarot cheese is nicknamed 'the colonel' because of what?

Three to five bands of dried reedmace around the cylinder suggest the stripes on a colonel's sleeve.

Who was the first chef to hold six Michelin stars, in 1933?

Eugénie Brazier, la Mère Brazier, won three stars for each of her two restaurants, in Lyon and at the Col de la Luère, in 1933; Alain Ducasse was the next to hold six, in 1998.

Sous vide cooking was devised in 1974 so foie gras kept its shape, at which restaurant?

Georges Pralus found the liver lost far less fat sealed in a bag; the Roanne restaurant of the Troisgros brothers was his laboratory.

Andouillette sausages are graded by a club of food writers known by which initials?

The AAAAA, the Association Amicale des Amateurs d'Andouillette Authentique, was formed in 1970 by a group of food writers; its diploma marks a good pork-intestine andouillette, of which Troyes makes the most famous.