France gets bout of indigestion over restaurant rules

France gets bout of national indigestion over restaurant rules

... French lawmakers, who next week will debate a bill that would force restaurant owners to label dishes made in-house with fresh ingredients – and, by extension, signal to customers when they are not.

The “fait maison” or “home-made” legislation, which will go to the senate following lower house approval in June, comes in response to what many people in France perceive as rapidly declining restaurant standards in a nation where cuisine has long been a synonym for culture itself.
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Pity to hear that continued decline has led to this. It does strike me that this is the sort of law, however, that will be a nightmare to enforce.

France is renowned as a world capital of gastronomy. But these days, odds have grown that a delicious-looking dish or dessert — may have been at least partly prepared by an industrial food giant, frozen, then reheated in a kitchen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/busin ... .html?_r=0

Dave148 wrote:

France is renowned as a world capital of gastronomy. But these days, odds have grown that a delicious-looking dish or dessert — may have been at least partly prepared by an industrial food giant, frozen, then reheated in a kitchen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/busin ... .html?_r=0

On our recent trip to Lisbon, we were handed a laminated trifold card with logo-bedecked confections in nearly every restaurant... but we found that there were often additional items added on the last page which were prepared in-house instead of fresh-off-the-truck. YMMV, but don't dismiss the branded dessert menu immediately.

Saw a piece on this subject on NPR today, interesting subject.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/0 ... t=20140721

More on this in today's NY Times - in both the food section, from Elaine Sciolino:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/23/dining/made-in-house-prove-it.html?_r=0,

And from Mark Bittman on the Op-Ed page:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/23/opinion/french-food-goes-down.html.

Mark Bittman has evolved into a tiresome gasbag, longing for halcyon days that existed primarily in his mind:

"America doesn’t have that kind of tradition, although the cooking of our diners and other greasy spoons was once honest and often enjoyable. But they’re gone, too, because the problems are fundamental. By relying increasingly over the years on fast and pre-prepared food in most arenas of our lives, we — including, at this point, the celebrated French — have allowed un-fresh food to take over. There are exceptions, of course — part of my work is looking for them — but that’s exactly what they are."

Really? I remember when all the produce at Jewel and Dominick's was pre-shrink-wrapped, and finding fresh button mushrooms was a big deal. Fresh chiles? Tomatillos? Shallots? Never seen. And that "honest cooking" came out of a can; the turkey for that hot turkey sandwich was most likely turkey roll, the gravy was from a packet, and the mashed potatoes were reconstituted potato buds. Gaaah!

It's a pretty safe bet that you can take the opposite side of anything Bittman says and you'd be right. Hopelessly out of touch with the reality of food production in this country.

That said, I use his cookbook a lot.