100 Fun Facts About French Food

In what year did UNESCO list the 'gastronomic meal of the French' as intangible heritage?

A traditional French meal runs starter, main, then cheese or dessert, sometimes with a salad before the cheese.

Which chef divided the professional kitchen into stations with the 'brigade system'?

The French press called him 'king of chefs and chef of kings'; his 1903 book Le Guide Culinaire is still a reference.

Escoffier created the dessert Peach Melba in 1893 in honour of an Australian who was what?

Nellie Melba also gave her name to Melba toast; Escoffier worked with hotelier César Ritz at the Savoy and Carlton in London.

The croissant descends from the kipferl, a crescent-shaped pastry from which country?

August Zang, an Austrian artillery officer, opened a Viennese bakery on the rue de Richelieu in Paris in 1838 or 1839.

Which four ingredients may a French 'baguette de tradition' contain?

A 1993 decree requires traditional bread to be kneaded, shaped and baked where it is sold; UNESCO listed baguette culture in 2022.

About how long is a standard baguette?

It is only 5 to 6 cm across, though some are baked up to a metre long.

Bouillabaisse, the saffron fish stew, originated in which port city?

Fishermen made it from bony rockfish they could not sell; the broth is served first with bread and rouille, then the fish on a platter.

What is rouille, the sauce served with bouillabaisse?

It is spread on grilled bread and floated in the broth; the name means 'rust', for its colour.

Cassoulet takes its name from the cassole, which is what?

The three main versions, from three Languedoc towns, differ in their meats: pork, mutton and partridge, or Toulouse sausage and duck.

Which town in the Aude department is regarded as the birthplace of cassoulet?

Its Grande Confrérie du Cassoulet was founded in 1970 and has run an annual festival since 2000.

Coq au vin is traditionally made with red wine from which region?

Alsace makes it with Riesling and the Jura with vin jaune; Julia Child cooked it twice on The French Chef.

Ratatouille is a traditional dish of which French region?

The name comes from the Occitan ratatolha and the verb touiller, to stir; Pixar's 2007 film made it famous worldwide.

Which snail species, known as the Roman snail or escargot de Bourgogne, is the one most eaten in France?

In fine dining you grip the shell with a pince à escargot and pull the snail out with a special two-pronged fork.

A macaron shell is made from egg whites, sugar and which ground ingredient?

The sandwich version with ganache or jam only appeared in the 1930s; Carmelite nuns in Nancy sold plain ones in the 1790s.

Which Paris pâtisserie is often credited with inventing the double-decker macaron?

Pierre Desfontaines of Ladurée usually gets the credit, though a baker named Claude Gerbet also claimed the invention.

Add a fried or poached egg on top of a croque monsieur and it becomes a croque what?

'Croque' means crunch and 'monsieur' mister; an 1891 recipe already lists toast, butter, Gruyère, ham and cayenne.

A traditional quiche Lorraine contains cream, eggs and bacon but NOT which ingredient often added today?

The word may come from the German Kuchen, cake; a 1982 book called Real Men Don't Eat Quiche was, one writer said, its 'final humiliation'.

Tarte Tatin, the upside-down caramelised apple tart, is named after two sisters who ran what?

Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin's hotel was in Lamotte-Beuvron; the name was applied later by the food writer Curnonsky and Maxim's.

The earliest known recipe for crème brûlée appears in a cookbook by François Massialot from which year?

Cambridge's Trinity College served a version as 'Trinity cream' from 1879; the name simply means burnt cream.

The blue cheese aged in the Combalou caves of southern France is made from the milk of which animal?

Only cheese aged in those caves may use the name, and the milk comes exclusively from Lacaune ewes.

Which cheese received France's very first Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, in 1925?

It is nicknamed the 'king of cheeses' and gets its blue veins from Penicillium roqueforti.

Camembert comes from which French region?

Legend credits farmer Marie Harel in 1791; the round wooden box that let it travel to America was invented in 1890.

Which French PDO cheese has the largest annual production, about 65,000 tonnes?

It is made in cooperative dairies called fruitières from Montbéliarde cow milk, in wheels weighing up to 55 kg.

Which three grapes make up nearly all Champagne?

The bubbles come from a second fermentation in the bottle, and Dom Pérignon, despite the legend, did not invent them.

What is the muselet on a bottle of Champagne?

Invented in 1844, it holds back roughly 5 to 6 atmospheres of pressure.

The Michelin Guide was first published in 1900 by a company that made what?

The brothers gave away nearly 35,000 copies to French motorists; restaurant stars only arrived in 1926.

In the Michelin Guide, three stars officially mean a restaurant is what?

The zero-to-three star hierarchy dates from 1931; the Bib Gourmand for good value arrived in 1997.

Julia Child co-wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking with Simone Beck and which other Frenchwoman?

Volume 1 held 524 recipes over 726 pages; the film Julie & Julia sent it back onto the bestseller list 48 years after publication.

Which of these is one of the five French mother sauces?

The usual list is béchamel, espagnole, tomato, velouté and hollandaise; Carême's 1833 list had allemande instead of the last two.

Béchamel sauce is made by thickening which liquid with a white roux?

It is usually flavoured with onion, nutmeg or thyme and is the base of a croque monsieur's topping.

Roughly what share of the seed used to make Dijon mustard is imported from Canada?

A 2022 Canadian drought halved the crop and emptied French supermarket shelves; 'Dijon mustard' is not a protected name.

In 1856 Jean Naigeon changed Dijon mustard for good by replacing vinegar with what?

Verjuice is the sour juice of unripe grapes; today a mix of white wine, vinegar and water imitates it.

French law defines foie gras as the fattened liver of which two birds?

France makes about three-quarters of the world's supply and has declared it part of its protected cultural heritage.

Which tea-dipped French cake triggers the narrator's memories in Proust's In Search of Lost Time?

The shell-shaped sponge cakes come from Commercy and Liverdun in Lorraine.

The gratinéed onion soup we know today became a fixture in the 19th century at which Paris market?

It was a workers' breakfast and a hangover cure for revellers; Henri Mouquin's restaurant introduced it to America in 1861.

A galette des rois is eaten around Epiphany and hides a small charm called what?

The word literally means fava bean; whoever finds it wears the paper crown, and the puff pastry is filled with frangipane.

The word soufflé comes from a French verb meaning what?

Beaten egg whites give the lift; Marie-Antoine Carême popularised the dish in the early 1800s.

The famous 1855 classification of Bordeaux wines was ordered by which ruler for the Paris Exposition?

Only one estate has ever been promoted since, and that took until 1973.

Which estate was promoted to Bordeaux first-growth status in 1973, the only change to the 1855 list?

It joined Lafite Rothschild, Latour, Margaux and Haut-Brion at the top.

The bûche de Noël is a Christmas dessert designed to look like what?

A rolled genoise sponge with buttercream, it only became popular after the Liberation, in 1945-50, as real Yule logs stopped being burned.

What is the minimum age of the youngest brandy in a Cognac labelled V.S.O.P.?

V.S. means two years and X.O. rose to ten years in 2018; about 3 percent evaporates each year, the 'angels' share'.

Cognac must be distilled twice in stills made of which metal?

It then ages at least two years in French oak from the Limousin or Tronçais forests, mostly from Ugni blanc grapes.

Savoury Breton galettes are traditionally made with flour from which grain?

Sweet crêpes use wheat; on Candlemas, February 2, tradition says flipping a crêpe while holding a gold coin brings a year of prosperity.

Crêpe Suzette is flambéed with orange peel and which liqueur, usually?

The flaming presentation is part of the dish; crêpes themselves are a speciality of France's northwest.

Steak tartare was originally known in early 20th-century Europe by what name?

Escoffier's 1922 guide listed a version served with tartar sauce, and the name stuck; the Tatar-horsemen story is a myth.

Pot-au-feu is traditionally served as two courses. What comes first?

Raymond Blanc calls it the most celebrated dish in France, eaten with coarse salt, mustard, gherkins and horseradish.

Which former mayor of Nice begged cooks never to put boiled potato in a salade niçoise?

His 1972 cookbook said the salad should be mostly tomatoes; Escoffier, born near Nice, was the one who added potatoes and green beans.

Kouign-amann, the caramelised laminated pastry, is a speciality of Douarnenez in which region?

The Breton name means 'butter cake', and the classic recipe is 40 percent dough, 30 percent butter, 30 percent sugar.

Bordeaux's canelés are baked in fluted metal moulds traditionally brushed with what?

They are thought to come from the Couvent des Annonciades; Gironde alone ate an estimated 4.5 million in 1992.

Poulet de Bresse, the only poultry with an AOC, shows the French tricolour how?

An 18th-century gastronome allegedly called it 'the queen of poultry, the poultry of kings'; only about 1.2 million are raised a year.

The cooking school Le Cordon Bleu takes its name from the blue ribbon of which French order?

Marthe Distel's magazine La Cuisinière Cordon Bleu grew into the Paris school in 1895; Julia Child is its most famous alumna.

In which year was beef bourguignon first documented, long before its link to Burgundy?

Julia Child and her co-authors called it 'certainly one of the most delicious beef dishes concocted by man'.

The name éclair, for the choux pastry, is French for what?

Until about 1850 it was called pain à la Duchesse; one theory says the name refers to how fast it is eaten.

Which gastronome wrote 'Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are' in 1825?

He was a lawyer and politician, and a soft cheese was named after him in the 1930s.

Paul Bocuse's restaurant near Lyon held three Michelin stars for a record how many years?

It kept them from 1965 until 2020; the Bocuse d'Or, founded in 1987, is cooking's most prestigious competition.

Absinthe was nicknamed 'la fée verte'. What does that mean?

Banned in France in 1915, it was only fully legal again after a Senate vote in 2011; adding water clouds it in the 'louche'.

Vichyssoise, the chilled leek and potato soup, is usually credited to Louis Diat working in which city?

He named it after the spa town of Vichy near his birthplace; it remains more popular in America and Britain than in France.

The Périgord black truffle grows underground in partnership with the roots of which trees?

Trained dogs, pigs and even truffle flies help find them; in 2013 they cost 1,000 to 2,000 euros a kilo.

Which country disputes with France the claim to have invented french fries?

Thomas Jefferson had 'potatoes served in the French manner' at a White House dinner in 1802.

The word ratatouille comes from Occitan and French verbs meaning what?

Ratouiller and tatouiller are expressive forms of touiller; the dish is tied especially to Nice and rural Provençal cooking.

The ring-shaped Paris-Brest pastry was created in 1910 to commemorate what?

Louis Durand of Maisons-Laffitte made it at the request of race founder Pierre Giffard; riders liked its 640 calories of praline cream.

A traditional Limousin clafoutis is baked with which fruit, stones left in?

The kernels lend a faint almond note; the name may come from the Occitan clafir, to fill.

In south-western France a pain au chocolat is known by what name?

Quebec uses the same south-western word, and Mexico sells them as chocolatines too.

A croquembouche, the choux tower bound with caramel, is traditionally served at what?

The name means 'crunches in the mouth'; it also turns up at baptisms and First Communions.

The small rectangular financier cake is said to be shaped to resemble what?

A pâtissier named Lasne adapted a nuns' recipe for businessmen near the Paris stock exchange who wanted a snack that would survive a pocket.

The gâteau Saint-Honoré is named for the patron saint of which trade?

Honoratus was a bishop of Amiens; the cake was invented in 1847 at the Chiboust bakery on the Paris street that bears his name.

Charles de Gaulle asked how anyone could govern a country with how many kinds of cheese?

He said it out of frustration with the Fourth Republic's endless party divisions.

French law releases Beaujolais nouveau at one minute past midnight on which day?

The INAO fixed the date in 1985; the Gamay wine is fermented only weeks before release and is pushed in the US for Thanksgiving, a week later.

In an île flottante, what floats on the crème anglaise?

Œufs à la neige is the cousin with poached egg-sized pieces; Benjamin Franklin reported eating a floating island in 1771.

Confit de canard, a Gascon speciality, preserves duck legs by cooking and storing them in what?

The legs are salt-cured first; potatoes roasted in the leftover fat are called pommes sarladaises.

The trou normand is a small glass of Calvados drunk when?

Calvados is apple or pear brandy; the Pays d'Auge appellation requires double distillation in a pot still.

The Mère Poulard omelette was devised to feed hungry travellers arriving where?

Annette Poulard beat the eggs hard and cooked them in plenty of butter; Paul Bocuse later wrote in the guest book, 'Mother Poulard is France!'

Tartiflette, the Savoyard potato and bacon bake, is made with which cheese?

It only reached ski-resort menus in the 1980s, pushed by the Reblochon trade syndicate to sell more cheese.

Aligot from the Aubrac plateau is mashed potato beaten with which ingredient?

Fresh tomme is stretched in until it pulls into ribbons; it was once served to pilgrims heading for Santiago de Compostela.

A classic mille-feuille has how many layers of puff pastry?

Two layers of crème pâtissière sit between them; the folded dough itself can run to 729 leaves.

The Mont Blanc dessert is a nest of sweetened vermicelli made from which nut?

The 1903 Guide Culinaire advised piling the whipped cream on irregularly to imitate a rugged, snowy mountain.

Neufchâtel, one of France's oldest cheeses, is traditionally sold in which shape?

Legend says local girls gave them to English soldiers during the Hundred Years' War.

Green Chartreuse is made by Carthusian monks from how many plants?

Only two monks know the full recipe; in 2019 the order capped output at 1.6 million bottles a year to protect their solitude.

Sweet Sauternes owes its flavour to grapes shrivelled by what?

Botrytis cinerea concentrates Sémillon and Sauvignon blanc; George Washington ordered 30 dozen bottles of Château d'Yquem after Jefferson let him taste it.

Lyon's quenelles de brochet are dumplings made from which fish?

A chef named Bontemps reputedly invented them to tame the fish's forest of fine bones; crayfish sauce Nantua is the classic partner.

Diners ordering pressed duck at Paris's La Tour d'Argent receive what?

Frédéric Delair began the tradition in the 1890s; the tally has passed one million birds.

Which actress suggested the name tarte tropézienne for Alexandre Micka's cream brioche?

She discovered it in Saint-Tropez while filming And God Created Woman; Micka registered the name as a trademark in 1973.

A 1954 Châteauneuf-du-Pape decree still bans what from landing in the vineyards?

Locals reported 'flying cigars' over the vines; the Cigare Volant wine, made since 1984, is named for the tale.

Why did Parmentier post guards round his potato field by day but withdraw them at night?

The pharmacist had learned to eat potatoes as a Prussian prisoner of war; France had banned the crop in 1748 on fears it caused leprosy.

The rum baba reached France through Lorraine thanks to an exiled king of which country?

Stanislaus I is said to have soaked a dry kugelhopf in spirits; his pâtissier Stohrer followed his daughter to Versailles in 1725.

Calissons d'Aix are a paste of ground nuts and which candied fruit, under royal icing?

They are blessed each September at the church of Saint-Jean-de-Malte, a custom dating to a 1630 vow after a plague outbreak.

The bright orange Mimolette was created under Louis XIV to replace which foreign cheese?

Its aged rind is pitted by cheese mites added on purpose for flavour, which once had the FDA objecting that it exceeded six mites per cubic inch.

Legend says an angry emperor lopped the top off Valençay cheese, leaving what shape?

The story goes that the shape reminded him of his disastrous Egyptian campaign; the goat's cheese stands about 7 cm tall.

French gourmets traditionally eat the tiny ortolan bunting with what over their heads?

Hunting the bird was banned in France in 1999; François Mitterrand's last New Year's Eve dinner, in 1995, included one.

Bêtises de Cambrai, boiled sweets said to have been made by mistake, are what flavour?

Bêtise means a blunder; the confectioners Afchain and Despinoy both claim the happy accident.

Who crowned Brie de Meaux the 'king of cheeses' at the Congress of Vienna in 1815?

The protected cheese is still made in Seine-et-Marne and a handful of neighbouring departments.

Crottin de Chavignol, the Loire goat cheese, shares its home village with which wine?

Chavignol has barely 200 inhabitants; one theory says crottin refers to the hardened old cheese looking like a dropping.

Unlike Cognac, Armagnac is traditionally distilled how?

It is the oldest brandy still made in France, from Gascon grapes such as Baco 22A, Folle blanche and Ugni blanc; an 1818 patent set the two apart.

Which critic coined 'nouvelle cuisine' in the restaurant guide he launched with Christian Millau?

Paul Bocuse claimed the term was first applied to the food he and others cooked for Concorde's maiden flight in 1969.

Jura vin jaune is bottled in a squat clavelin holding how much?

The odd size recalls what is left of a litre after six years and three months under a yeast veil in the barrel.

Béarnaise sauce was reportedly first served in 1836 at the opening of a restaurant where?

Chef Collinet, also credited with puffed potatoes, cooked at the Pavillon Henri IV, in the former residence of the king from Béarn.

Livarot cheese is nicknamed 'the colonel' because of what?

Three to five bands of dried reedmace around the cylinder suggest the stripes on a colonel's sleeve.

Who was the first chef to hold six Michelin stars, in 1933?

Nobody matched la Mère Brazier's feat for another 64 years; Paul Bocuse trained in her Lyon kitchen.

Sous vide cooking was devised in 1974 so foie gras kept its shape, at which restaurant?

Georges Pralus found the liver lost far less fat sealed in a bag; the Roanne restaurant of the Troisgros brothers was his laboratory.

Andouillette sausages are graded by a club of food writers known by which initials?

The Association Amicale des Amateurs d'Andouillette Authentique was formed in 1970; the pork-intestine sausage of Troyes is the most famous.