Ok, Rillifane, and Millie Y/A top answerers: WHY is the ?

Question

food in Paris so doggone good? The bread is fabulous. Even the silly ham and cheese sandwich and diet cokes and YOGURT is better than the US. Is is due to being fresher, less processing or just the Parisian ambience (surely it is more than that! ;) )

Answer 1

That's a more complicated question than you might think and the answer isn't easy because it involves a lot of intersecting factors.

First let me say some good things about America. The truth is that the USA turns out some extraordinary food. You mentioned a ham and cheese sandwich. The fact is that there is no ham anywhere that is better than genuine Smithfield ham nor any cheese better than that turned out by Maytag Dairy Farms. The famous pain Poilâne is really a variation of San Francisco sourdough which was created long before pain Poilâne was first baked in 1932. Even when it comes to wine the fact is that France now sends its young winemakers to UC Davis to study viticulture and enology (the sciences of grape growing and wine making). California wines routinely win international competitions.

Nor does America lack cooks who are capable of turning out excellent meals. Especially in the south there is a great cooking tradition using local ingredients that turns up in many an out of the way little diner, juke joint or BBQ shack.

But what's happened in America is that corporate forces have fed the desire for speed, uniformity, availability and low prices to create groceries that stock mass produced foodstuffs and restaurant chains that churn out tasteless, industrialized junkfood.

For the most part, Americans happily accept this and most have forgotten, if they ever knew, that something better is available.

They go to Olive Garden and eat overcooked noodles with gloppy white sauce flavored with fake parmesan cheese and think that is what Fettuccine Alfredo is supposed to be. They go to the market and buy factory farmed chickens or tomatoes picked half ripe and reddened with ethane gas. neither of which have any discernable taste, and are happy as long as the price is low.

They are, to a great extent, the victims of the industrial ingenuity of the USA which allows them to have anything they want year round at low prices. Americans pay a significantly smaller percentage of their income on food than people in the rest of the world, including France. But as a result, much of what they eat is tasteless

All these things tend to drive that charming little roadside diner out of business and to populate the cities with fast food joints and chain restaurants.

Indeed, there is serious concern in France that as American mass production methods and American chains like McDonalds and Starbucks proliferate the same thing could happen to France (God forbid!).

NB: The way to deal with the problem is, by the way, to grow your own food and/or buy from local small producers and to do your own cooking.

I grow a lot of my own food, and buy my beef, chicken and eggs from my neighbors. I make my own yoghurt, bake my own bread, and make pickles, preserves, jams, jellies and even corned beef from home grown or locally produced ingrediants.

Answer 2

Ok you tried them in France, now try them in Belgium and you will see that they are even better!

Answer 3

Cos its all fresh and not processed and packaged like it is in America!!

Answer 4

Sorry, I'm not Rillifane or Millie but the French do not use as many processed foods and preservatives as we do in the US and that makes a huge difference.

American yogurt is far from real yogurt. Try looking for Greek, Italian or Bulgarian yogurt here in the US, they have that real yogurt taste. The cheese is real cheese, the ham is fresh enough that it remembers the pig and the bread was surely baked within a day on your French sandwich.

The coke is made with different water and less sweetener (Mexican cokes taste that way too).

The fruits & veggies have not been picked green for a long distance haul to the market. Their fruits & veggies actually taste as they should (tomatoes are a perfect example).

Oh and the fact that your surroundings are charming helps!

Rillifane. May I come and live with you? Jk,jk,jk! :-)