snails. first time.
For the past three months in Europe I have learned so much about the food culture in France. I have learned that many of the foods and drinks are named after regions of France. For example, the Champagne is from the region of Champagne. Dijon mustard is from a city named Dijon in France. Camembert cheese is from the region of Normandy. The quiche is from the region of Lorraine.
One of my first contacts with French food was my first morning with my host family. My breakfast was light and it consisted of a croissant, crepes and tea. My host mom said crepes are very healthy. Back home I usually ate cereal and I figured out later that cereal is not as healthy as I thought. In general cereal contains more fat than crepes. I was impressed by how organized the French were in the dinner setting; with the fork and spoon above my plate for dessert, the knife and spoon for my soup to the right, the salad fork and dinner fork to my left. I liked the small portions of food they had throughout the courses. I also enjoyed that my host mom gave us dessert at the end. As a treat for having ate all our food. I gained a lot of insight about French culture through my host mom. She told me many things French like. Although I am not sure if it applied to all French people. My host mom did not like to use salt on her foods such as rice. She also believes that a person should eat a different type of food everyday. She would never serve us the same food the next day for dinner.
Outside my host family,I observed in the cities that there were no water fountains around the city or even around campus. Then what shocked me was that French people get an hour and a half lunch breaks. There are not really any fast food restaurants in the city. French people don’t use their cellphones as much while eating. They socialize more with the friends they eat with. They never seem to eat in a rush.
In keeping up with my theme of meat consumption througout the three months, I noticed that the French do eat a lot of varied types of meats such as duck meat, rabbit meat, cow meat and pig meat.
For November I traveled to Italy. My diet in Italy consisted of pizza of course. As well as pasta and gelato. At the airport in Rome I ate a burger from Burger Federation. The menu at the restaurant said that the meat was imported from the United States!!
The weekend after we went to Italy we went to Normandy and I ordered saucisses. As I mentioned in my previous blog posts this is a popular French meat. It is prepared differentely at different regions of France.
After the weekend at Normandy, for thanksgiving I went to Strasbourg, France and ate Choucroute. Choucroute is a famous Alsatian recipe that consists of sausages and other salted meats and charcuterie, and often potatoes.