![]() ![]() French eating habits, the national food agency Anses says, are no longer a model: now it involves more and more highly processed foods, too much salt, and not enough fibre.įor all its particular relationship to food, France is far from immune to la malbouffe. The country’s food processing and distribution firms are big and powerful. ![]() Good food is no longer cheap in France – in restaurants or at home. “But that’s if you can afford nine, 10 or 12 euros for lunch out.”Īnd there’s the thing. “I think many French people who go even to fast-food places are very conscious of the quality of ingredients, and whether dishes are really made on the premises,” she said. What’s more, they now represent 60% of the entire French restaurant business.įast food “doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t eat well,” said Josiane Bouvier, a geography teacher, emerging from Nous, an organic takeaway on rue du Châteaudun, with an unFrench-sounding “hotbox” of grilled chicken, mint yoghurt sauce, seasonal salad and wholegrain rice. Increasing time pressure (no more two-hour lunches the average French worker now takes a 31-minute break at midday, according to one survey) and the emergence of home-delivery services such as Deliveroo and UberEats have seen the country’s fast-food sector expand exponentially.įrance’s 32,000 fast-food outlets booked sales of about €51bn last year – 6% more than in 2016, 13% up on four years ago, and almost three times the figure in 2005. Which does not mean the home of haute cuisine has not fallen for fast food: it has. ![]() They are eaten sitting at a table, with (often) a glass of wine, in a “proper” restaurant. Yet the vast majority of burgers consumed in France – 70% – are far from fast food. Sometimes even truffles.”īernard Boutboul, Gira Conseil’s managing director, describes the burger’s seemingly unstoppable rise in France as “a euphoria, a craze” that has now started to verge on “hysteria”, with posh burgers outselling French bistro classics such as duck breast and boeuf bourguignon in many restaurants. You get nice French touches: a wedge of foie gras, roquefort. “Almost every place – even some really quite smart ones – does at least one. “They’re part of our national cuisine now,” said Sara Vérier, a bank worker and frequent restaurant-goer. At L’Artisan du Burger on rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, burgers with ingredients including rocket, lime zest, reblochon cheese, compote of red onions and a smoked spice sauce cost €12 (more if you want them in a squid-ink bun topped with nigella or black cumin seeds). Perhaps more remarkably, burgers now feature on the menus of 85% of French restaurants. Twenty years ago next year, a pipe-smoking, mustachioed sheep farmer called José Bové famously dismantled a half-built McDonald’s at Millau in southern France with a group of fellow smallholders and ex-hippies, launching a national crusade against la malbouffe – junk food.īut now France loves burgers: a survey published earlier this year by consultancy Gira Conseil showed the country’s 66 million people consumed 1.46 billion of them in 2017 – nearly 10% more than the previous year. “Look: Charolais beef, fourme d’Ambert cheese on the top. “You know they use all-French ingredients?” she said, pointing at her tray. Natalie Girardot, a sales assistant at a nearby jeweller’s store, was equally dismissive. Why should the French be any different from the rest of the world?” They’re cheap, they’re fast, they use pretty OK ingredients. “I can’t believe you’re asking this,” said Stephane Loiseau, a 29-year-old account manager tapping his order – “ un CBO” (chicken, bacon, onion) with fries – into the touchscreen. So why, last week, did a new report suggest that 30 million people – nearly half the country’s population – could be obese by 2030? And how come, on a sunny lunchtime in early autumn, there is a queue outside McDonald’s – one of 1,440 in France, the chain’s second-biggest global market – on the Boulevard des Italiens in central Paris? For years, France’s eating habits – and not just in restaurants – have been a model: portion control lots of basics (eggs, butter, bread, potatoes) little processed or fast foods plenty of fish, fruit, vegetable oils and (of course) full-fat dairy structured, convivial, family-centred meals. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |