French Food

Here you will learn the basics of French food and what is served for each meal.

Breakfast

Cafes often offer Croissants for breakfast. Le petit dejeuner (breakfast) is often a quick meal consisting of crossiants, butter and jam, eggs or ham along with coffee or tea. Children often drink hot chocolate along with their breakfast. Breakfast of some kind is always served in caf?s opening early in the day.

Lunch

Le dejeuner (lunch) was once a two hour mid-day meal but has recently seen a trend toward the one hour lunch break. In some smaller towns the two hour lunch may still be customary. Sunday lunches are often longer and are taken with the family. Restaurants normally open for lunch at 12:00pm and close at 2:30pm. Many restaurants close on Saturday and Monday during lunch. In large cities a majority of working people and students eat their lunch at a corporate or school cafeteria, which normally serve complete meals as described above; it is therefore not usual for students to bring their own lunch food. It is common for white-collar workers to be given lunch vouchers as part of their employee benefits. These can be used in most restaurants, supermarkets and traiteurs; however workers having lunch in this way typically do not eat all three dishes of a traditional lunch due to price and time considerations. In smaller cities and towns, some working people leave their workplaces to return home for lunch, generating four rush hours during the day. Finally, an also popular alternative especially among blue-collar workers is to lunch on a sandwich possibly followed with a dessert; both dishes can be found ready-made at bakeries and supermarkets for budget prices. The common folk often has meat and vegetables, and for dessert they have fruits and cake.

Dinner

Le diner (dinner) often consists of three courses, hors d'oeuvre or entree (introductory course often soup), plat principal (main course), and a cheese course or dessert, sometimes with a salad offered before the cheese or dessert. Yogurt may replace the cheese course, while a normal everyday dessert would be fresh fruit. The meal is often accompanied by bread, wine and mineral water. Wine consumption has been dropping recently in young people. Fruit juice consumption has risen from 25.6% in 1996 to 31.6% in 2002. Main meat courses are often served with vegetables along with rice or pasta. Restaurants often open at 7:30pm for dinner and stop taking orders between the hours of 10:00pm and 11:00pm. Many restaurants close for dinner on Sundays.

Drink

Traditionally, France has been a culture of wine consumption. While this characteristic has lessened with time, even today, many French people drink wine daily. The consumption of low-quality wines during meals has been greatly reduced. Beer is especially popular with the young. Other popular alcoholic drinks include pastis, an aniseed flavoured beverage drunk diluted with cold water, or cider. The legal alcohol purchase age is 16. Usually, parents tend to prohibit their children from consuming alcohol before these children reach their early teens. Students and young adults are known to drink heavily during parties, but usually drunkenness is not displayed in public. Public consumption of alcohol is legal, but driving under the influence can result in severe penalties.