Lunch is an important part of the French day, to some even sacred. A time to sit and relax, partake of good food, chat to family or friends. A French person would be horrified if you suggested that they skip lunch, as it’s an institution! The French do the food well – it’s well prepared, made fresh mainly, from carefully chosen ingredients, and carefully put together.
As a visitor, you need to know that most small town restaurants and cafes serve a meal only between 12 noon and 2 pm generally. We discovered this the hard way on a number of different days: we arrived around 2:15pm or 2:30pm and were told, “Desolée, no more lunch.” You can, of course, still buy coffee and snacks, but that’s not quite the same as a fixed-price 2- or 3-course meal, or a wonderful savory plate. This time-constraint is not so common in the city, although some cafes/bistros do serve only at certain times. Some of the eateries that cater more to tourists may post a sign saying “Serving Non-Stop”. This doesn’t mean 24 hours a day but that you can get a meal at any time they are open.
In France generally, an employee lunch subsidy program is an expected perk. Most work places offer either a canteen/café on-sight serving good, cheap meals at lunch time, or offer special lunch vouchers, called “chèques déjeuner” or “ticket restaurant”. Employers issue these lunch vouchers for each day an employee works in a month, each worth about €5-7 (of which the employer pays up to about 75%). Many (?most) cafes/bistrots post a “chèque déjeuner” decal on their door or window, showing that they accept the lunch ‘checks’. Brown bag lunches are rare, as lunch is sacred.
At INRA, where Rod is working, they have a good cafeteria, and most people eat lunch there every working day. Many people have a full 3-course meal, which may cost them only around €4-5. There’s a wide selection and the special plates change daily. Around the city, I also see many groups of working people at various cafes, usually having a full meal.
For us, as long-term visitors, there’s a huge benefit to this lunch attitude: we can get a good meal at lunchtime almost anywhere, for a very reasonable price, usually a lot cheaper than at night.At weekends, Rod and I take advantage of this. We like to get out and about on a weekend morning then find a café/bistrot for lunch. Two of our favorite dishes are “croques” (see my earlier posting) and salads composèes (literally, composed salads), as we’ve discovered that the French chefs do salads really well. All eating places will offer a basic salad, but not all offer these special salads composèes. Each café/bistrot has its own salad specialities, but the basic idea is: start with a large plate, arrange a base of lettuce and/or other green leaves, add pieces of tomato/cucumber, snow peas or other vegetables, then layer on the special ingredients—smoked salmon, eggs on toast, goat cheese, Auvergne ham etc—topped with a light creamy mustard sauce usually.
One day we went to Creperie Beaubourg, overlooking the Place Igor Stravinsky with its pool and quirky, colorful fountain-statues (every fountain represents one of Stravinsky’s scores), the St. Merri Church to one side.
A warm late-summer day allowed us to sit outside and watch the world go by as we enjoyed the Salade Paysanne (country salad), a huge plate with various types of ham topped with a fried egg, a basket of crusty baguette, and a small pichet (jug) of rose wine.
Last weekend, the weather was much colder, but near the Eiffel Tower we could still sit outside, thanks to an extended canopy and many heaters—the Parisians like to be outside, even in the cold.
Happily, the salad season continues all year, it seems, so we had salade nicoise and salade Auvergnate—served with crusty baguette (of course, that’s a given in France).
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