(Fig. 1: Eiffel Tower at Dusk, photo from Youtube)

You may not have realized it, but French cuisine is possibly the most influential style of food in the world.  The way the French cook their food has shaped the way the entire world has cooked.  The use of popular herbs and spices that we see in our everyday dishes are used because the French popularized them.  French cooks are also incredibly influential in the way they cook food.  They have introduced frying, searing, and the sous vide to the cooking world.

The French use many different spices in their dish, and the spices that they do use are very common, and used in many dishes that we cook here in America.  The French love using salt and pepper, using it in just about every dish that you can think of.  They rub every single cut of meat with at least a salt and pepper rub, even it is going to get marinated in something.  The French also use classic herbs like thyme, rosemary, sage, parsley, bay leaves, and tarragon to flavor their dishes beautifully.  The French also love using onions, garlic, carrots, and mushrooms to had further depths of flavor to their food.  When it comes to meat, the French use what we as Americans consider to be normal, cooking beef, chicken, fish, veal, and lamb.  They also love cooking other, more obscure meats like snail and frog.  The French plate would be incomplete without bread, which they absolutely love.

(Fig. 2: Cheese and Wine, photo from gourmetcheesedetective)

When talking about French cuisine, it would be remiss of me to not talk about French cheese and wine.  French cheese is extremely diverse, with each cheese having a distinct and robust flavor.  There are three different types of cheese in France, pressed, soft, and blue.  Each of these have their own distinct flavors and textures, and can be made from either cow, goat, or sheep milk.  These milks are then flavored with other spices, and allowed to form into mold, which is turned into cheese in a very complex process that is way to complicated to explain with words.  Cheese is often paired with wine in France, and there are people dedicated to finding the best wine for a certain cheese, and vice versa.  Drinking wine in France is almost a national past time.  It is not uncommon to have a different wine paired with each course of your meal.  I know that when I had one three course meal in Paris, we had a white wine with the appetizer, a red wine with the entree, and a glass of champagne with dessert.  Each of these wines was specifically selected for the dish that we had, and the restaurant had already paired it with the dish.

(Fig. 3: Escargot Dish, photo from epicurious)

Now, when thinking of dishes that are specifically French, what immediately came to my mind was escargot.  Just last summer, I had my first experience with escargot, and I think that any person who has never had it, I had my hesitations.  It is snail for heaven’s sake, but I decided that I should at least tried it, and boy did it surprise me.  Most escargot is simply prepared with a seasoned butter.  The butter is mixed with garlic, shallot, salt, pepper, nutmeg, wine, and parsley.  Once mixed, you simply fill an escargot shell with the butter, and the snail, and make until the escargot are sizzling.  The taste of this dish is simply astounding, as the meat almost melts in your mouth.

(Fig. 4: Pan Seared Fois Gras, photo from leitesculinaria)

Another classic French dish that comes to mind is foie gras.  This is a particularly controversial dish, as the meal is a duck or goose liver that has been forced fed corn via a tube.  Animal rights activists seek to end the practice, but many push back against these calls, because the meat that is produced is incredibly tender.  It is really hard to make foie gras in your house, but if you have the chance to have it in a restaurant, I urge you to try it, even if you have shortcomings about how it was produced.  The meat legitimately melts in your mouth (and I know that you have other meats described this way, but they do not have anything on foie gras), and it is unequivocally the most tender and flavorful piece of meat that I have ever had.

French food is actually quite amazing, as the craft of flavoring and cooking food has been essentially perfected by the culture.  The style of French food has permeated through almost every culture, with countries around the world adopting there cooking and flavoring styles.  You have almost undoubtedly had a French meal before, but if you ever get the chance, I urge you have French food in France, and experience one of the several aspects of the amazing French culture.