An usual French lunch will include: an appetizer (une entrée), such as a mixed salad, soup, terrine or pâté; main course, (le plat principal), choice of beef, pork, chicken, or fish, with potatoes, rice, pasta and/or vegetables; cheese course (from a local selection) and/or a sweet.
Roasted chicken with potatoes is the traditional Sunday lunch in France, whether you buy it already roasted at the local farmers market or you make it at home. There are several recipes, but my favorite includes whole garlic cloves roasted with the chicken.
French lunches have multiple courses! They start with a vegetable, such as a leafy lettuce salad, a cucumber tomato salad or beets. Next up is a warm main dish, which almost always includes another veggie. Think sliced roast beef with baked potatoes, veal with mushrooms and broccoli or breaded fish with cauliflower.
Unlike in some countries, where lunch involves grabbing a quick sandwich or salad, in France, it is a more substantial and leisurely affair. This often consists of a salad, bread, a main dish, and a dessert. This is also why they tend to eat dinner much later than some of their European neighbors.
Lunch at home: Some French people still go home at lunchtime, and many of these people eat a warm meal, usually not as fancy as the multi-course restaurant meal. This practice is more common in the countryside, especially in outdoor jobs, where an escape from the midday sun offers a much needed break.
The three meals of the day– breakfast, lunch, and dinner– often include both bread and cheese. Maybe that is why the French rarely snack. But truth be told, once you've tried French cuisine, you won't blame them– a bag of chips is worth skipping to save room for a sweet crêpe any day.
The French typically eat pastries for breakfast, potatoes for lunch, and soups for dinner. France, like most developed countries, also has its share of meat eaters, vegetarians, and salty-and-sweet food enthusiasts.
We then discussed the three main meals in more detail, focusing on le petit-déjeuner (breakfast), le déjeuner (lunch), and le dîner (dinner). To review, for le petit-déjeuner (breakfast), the French usually opt for lighter fare, like la tartine (a slice of bread or toast with butter or jam).
Think a couple of biscuits, a piece of cake, a pain au chocolat (or chocolatine, for right-thinking people in southwest France), piece of fruit, pain au lait, a croissant, yoghurt, compote, or a slice of bread slathered in Nutella.
Essentially, it comes down to this: lunch is the most important meal of the day for the French. Even serious corporate businesses often look the other way if employees take more than an hour at lunch. For the French, lunch is that big meal that's supposed to get you through the day.
A typical lunch break at work in France lasts at least 1 hour and is never taken at your desk. We value eating slowly and being seated at a table to do so. If you are having a "social lunch" with your team or a client, plan for a 2 hour break—or even more if it's an important meeting.
The key to a French breakfast also comes in its name: petit déjeuner, literally little lunch. Unlike the English, the French aren't filling up because they haven't eaten anything since the night before. They're having a little something to tide them over to the most important meal of the day, le déjeuner at lunch time.
CRÈME BRULÉE
Crème brûlée is one of the most popular French desserts of all time, and for good reason. The two contrasting layers of luscious vanilla cream under a layer of crunchy caramelized sugar are a perfect marriage. This dessert stands out from all the rest.
The French diet consists of real food
French women tend not to eat snack food, junk food, or fast food like the way we do. Their fats mostly come from monosaturated oils like olive oil, nuts, omega-3 from fish, and a small amount of saturated oils from cheese.
Another example of how important food is in France can be seen when you consider their traditional meal times: breakfast at 7:00 am, lunch at noon, afternoon snack (le goûter) at 3:30 pm (for kids only), dinner around 8:00 pm.
Walk into any American grocery store and it will be filled with a wide variety of chips, biscuits, candies, etc. Both adults and children snack regularly between meals. In France, there is only one acceptable time to snack, and it is mainly for children: le goûter at 3-4pm. And there are no chips involved.
Distribution of bedtime during the week among French 2019
It displays that 33 percent of respondents declared going to bed between 11 pm and 12 pm on weekdays.
French salads are eaten all over France as a starter, a main meal and even as part of your main course. Salad is a mixture of foods, usually including vegetables or fruits, occasionally with a dressing or sauce, occasionally nuts or croutons and sometimes with the addition of meat, fish, pasta or cheese.
A French breakfast is sweet. It is composed of slices of buttered bread and jam spread on it, sometimes croissants or other pastries and cereals. Usually, the drinks are coffee, orange juice or milk. Let's take a closer look at the principal ingredients of a Made in France breakfast.