3 American foods I took for granted , and 3 French foods I will miss

source

Bonjour à tous!

The other day I was just having a nutella banana crêpe and suddenly I realized, holy cow, it's going to be quasi-impossible to find this in America after I leave this beautiful country in less than two months! And that thought, my friends, inspired me to write this post.

3 American foods I took for granted:

1. Peanut butter

I can't tell you how stunned I was to be unable to find this little delicious jar of brownish thing called peanut butter. I personally feel that my astonishment is justified because even back in China, I could find peanut butter in supermarkets, so I didn't even think that it was a possibility that it doesn't exist in France. (Okay, it does, if you go to stores that sell foreign imported foods, but it's rare.) In fact, when I lamented this absence to a few of my French friends and colleagues, they were like, ew (yes, they said that), peanut butter? Which is interesting; because it is true that French people deteste foods that are artificial and overly processed. Tant pis that there's no more pb & j's, but I've got enough Nutella to get me occupied...

2. breakfast foods

Cinnamon rolls, muffins, donuts, omelettes, pankcakes, French toast (this one is quite ironic), waffles... you name it. After coming to France, my breakfast  became more or less 'nonexistent' in comparison with American standards. Here, for breakfast, French people usually just eat a small croissant with a small cup of espresso (think very small). I'm not saying it's unhealthy, I just miss the chocolate chip pancakes from Le Peep's diner in Evanston.

3. burritos

Okay, this is technically not American, but with Chipotle and the like being so popular and ubiquitous in America, parting with burritos in France turned out to be kind of hard. Mexican food in general is not very big here, therefore it is also pretty hard to make it at home- words like sour cream and jalapeno will earn you strange looks from the supermarket staff.

Okay; now that I kind of vented my food cravings, let's get on with the literally endless list of French foods that I will miss. For the sake of being succinct, I'll just share 3 from the list.

3 French foods I will miss:

source

1. salade de chèvre (Goat cheese salad)

I could literally eat this thing all day. Warm fresh goat cheese on baguette slices on a bed of greens and thinly sliced tomatoes - what's not to love about this dish. It is super filling, super healthy, and ridiculously tasty. I'd love to recreate this after I return to the states, so wish me luck on finding the right kind of goat cheese. The goat cheese in France - oh la la, it brought my life onto a whole new level.

source

2. confit de canard 

This duck dish that I don't have words for will for sure make me have drooling dreams after I leave France. My best experience with it was once at this obscure little bistro down the street I live: it was late into the evening, the duck meat was perfectlly soft and soaked through with flavor, add to that a bed of tenderly mashed and buttered potatoes. I think that first bite counts as one of my happiest moments in life.

source

3. Religieuse au chocolat

I believe that everyone who has ever tasted this heavenly creation understands why it's called 'chocolate religious' (okay, the name makes more sense in French). A bite of this beautifully shaped dessert will send you straight to the high heavens with your mouth full of thick, creamy chocolate and puff pastry.

About time to wrap up this post, otherwise I fear I'll drool all over my keyboard. A la prochain!

xx

Vanessa :]

France, China, America: culinary observations

Is my hat French yet

Bonjour à tous!

I've been in Arles, Provence, for exactly a week now. Even though I've only spent a few days with my host family so far, already I've learned an abundance of things about the Provençal culture, and the French lifestyle! I would love to record and comment on all of them, but if I do that, it'll seriously take days! So I'm just going to talk about one  observation here today - the cuisine.

Before coming to France, I knew that European cultures are different from those in America, but still I generally thought they are both Western cultures, so they should be pretty similar. However, after having really lived here with a host family and participating in cultural events in Arles made me realize that this is not the case at all. In many ways, especially in the food cultures, I find the French culture more similar to the Chinese ways than to those of the US! Surprising, right?

In France, people take their meals seriously. Like, two-hour-per-meal seriously.  But as I was strolling through town, I hardly saw anyone overweight! Almost all the younger people around my age, including the teenagers, are slim, and the people my parents' age are sill mostly fit! As far as I know, working out/sports is not a big thing in France, so why on Earth does everyone look so good?

The secret lies in the French cuisine. The word "breakfast" in French literally means "little lunch," and a typical French "little lunch" usually consists of a piece of bread, a cup of coffee, and maybe a glass of juice. Really little compared to the American full breakfast affairs, non? For lunch, people usually have a salad with some kind of meat or fish with bread, or some pasta. Dinner here is super late, at around 8pm or even 9pm! At my host family we eat dinner at 9pm. But we eat very light, usually just a salad like this:

And this is what a typical lunch looks like:

Or this:

I don't have a picture of breakfast, because the lighting isn't very good in the morning when I typically eat so... but if I do get a good picture, I will add it to this post.

Overall, I find that the way people eat (little breakfasts, heavier lunches, light dinners) here in France are more similar to the Chinese than to the Americans. This is not a critique of American fast food, but here in France, it is very hard to find fast food chains! In Arles, for example, there are no chain restaurants at all! Also, another thing that I remarked on is how light French dinners are, and how small the portions are in general. When I mentioned this to my host Maman and host Papa, they were surprised that portions in American restaurants are so "enormous." 

I also think that in America, I often hear a lot (sometimes too much) about how/what/when to eat. In France, one just eats! That simple. It's more or less like that in China as well, because come to think of it, the problem with the American way of eating, in my opinion, is what and how much people eat, not how. If people ate more vegetables and smaller portions, I think then it'll be a better cuisine in general.

Of course, all of the above are just my personal views. All comments are welcome!

xx

Vanessa :]