Mike Devlin Asks When Is French Food Not French?

We have had a couple of articles that covered where dishes originated from and not where you thought they were from – sauerkraut, for example – but there is one country in particular that has its name slapped on so many things that have nothing to do with it at all.

Hello, France.

French fries. We, and others, have done to death, so we can, and most definitely will, ignore them (you’re welcome, Belgium). Before we dive straight in, though, there is a reason this happens and, yes, it is exactly the reason you think it is: French cuisine equals supposedly better food. It really is that simple. Whether that is actually true or not can be debated another time, but the perception exists and, as such, diners feel more impressed.

French toast. We have done this one before, but since we are here now, let’s revisit it. It is Roman. We know this because it appears in a Roman cookbook from the 4th century AD titled Apicius, if you fancy borrowing it from your local library. It is more of a compendium, consisting of about 500 recipes spread across ten books, one of which covers dishes you will never find available anywhere today, such as flamingo with date and mint, and stuffed dormice. The toast, however, is definitely in there.

Rumour has it that a Joseph French, an American innkeeper in 1724, advertised it as French’s Toast, but a misspelling resulted in the apostrophe being dropped.

In France it is called pain perdu, meaning “lost bread”, essentially a way of using up stale bread, although I am not sure the nation is losing any sleep over any of this.

Oddly, there is an English variation of this, minus cream and vanilla, with the rather splendid or absolutely awful name of Eggy Bread. It is a wonder that version has not travelled well.

French dressing. Now they will lose sleep over this one. In France, this is oil, vinegar and mustard. In North America, however, they have, for reasons known only to themselves, created an abomination containing sugar and ketchup.

Back in the 1800s, French dressing in the US was exactly the French version, but as the nation is wont to do, they started adding lots of other things while keeping the name, despite it becoming absolutely nothing of the sort. In fact, the use of the term is now so widespread that it covers many different kinds of dressing. If you are going to offend a nation, you may as well do it properly.

This would be akin to making a fish and seaweed patty, serving it in a roti, and calling it a hamburger. Yes, exactly.

French vanilla. Why? Just why? Vanilla is grown predominantly in Mexico and Madagascar and very much not in France.

To be fair to our French cousins, the term refers to the technique of creating a silky-smooth custard, but that already has a name: crème pâtissière. Despite having vanilla in it, you get the idea.

French press. A lover of slow-brewed coffee? Then you are using a French press, and already you know it is not French, partly because of the nature of this article and partly because there are tens of millions of very angry Italians screaming at you right now.

The modern version was patented by an Italian, but because a functional method was first used in France, the name stuck.

French mustard. There are actually two versions of this, and for once one of them does not hail from North America.

The American version requires another Mr French to step forward, this time George, and that is where the history of that name both begins and ends.

The British version was unabashedly and shamelessly a marketing ploy: a milder yet spicier version of Dijon.

French silk pie. Oh, Betty Cooper of Maryland has a lot to answer for. She entered a competition with Pillsbury in 1954 and created what was essentially a chocolate pudding pie. A sexier name I do not believe I have ever come across, but because it was mousse-like, and mousse is French, it was decided that it deserved a name change.

Is it any wonder the French nation is so exasperated with the rest of the world?

Crème brûlée. This one does not need the word “French” because it knows exactly what it is doing and is guilty as sin.

It may be French for “burnt cream”, but what we know as custard with burnt sugar on top is actually English.

Yes, a burnt pudding. That name was never going to fly, although the original term, Trinity Cream, was perfectly respectable. It never stuck, so it was renamed in French, following the English words, and, well… voilà.

French macaron. Let’s keep this one simple. Much like the press, it is Italian. The French did turn it into a sandwich, though.

Baguette. Is there a more French-sounding name or a food that instantly evokes Paris? Probably not, which is unfortunate because it was created by an Austrian with the splendid name of August Zang.

French bread was traditionally dense and round, but Zang introduced steam and a different shape, creating what we recognise today.

French fried onions. I did say we would avoid French fries, but this was born from the same thinking. To Americans, anything thinly sliced and deep-fried became “French”. Julienne is the term for vegetables cut into thin strips, and this is also referred to as the French cut, which likely explains the name, although it would not surprise me if fries were part of the inspiration simply for simplicity’s sake.

We could blame the French for declaring themselves the best at food for all of this, but perhaps the rest of the world should not be quite so quick to tack their name onto things to make them sound better than they actually are.

We will say both sides share the blame.