Here is my second column for The Connexion, the monthly newspaper produced in Monaco for English speakers in France. You see the little symbol alongside the dishes offered in the French ministry of the economy's illustration of the new fait maison scheme intended to promote fresh, home-produced cooking and preparations in restaurants.Good to see some andouillettes passing the test, though I am a chips-not-mash man for preferred accompaniment. But should we actually expect any improvement in the increasingly disappointing standards customers in French restaurants have to endure? I doubt it but we shall see.This, with a political tailpiece, is as written for, and largely as published by, The Connexion ...
On the eve of France launching the fait maison initiative, designed to promote good home cooking in restaurants, another sub-standard meal on another Mediterranean seafront illustrated why it may be necessary, if only as a start.
The lamb’s shank was bland, its sauce was thin and the accompanying potatoes were soggy. Across the table, the tartare of tuna was declared insipid and, with a sickly creamy top, barely edible. No wonder France’s world-renowned reputation for cuisine has been taking a battering.
At the top end of the trade, where money is no object, diners can still eat like royalty. Bargains survive in the cheap-and-cheerful bracket; I have yet to taste better pizzas than those sold from a van in a car park in Le Lavandou.
The problem lies in the crowded middle market, where the experience of eating out is routinely ruined by food that is at best uninspired, at worst wretched, with slow and sometimes surly service and inflated bills.
It is no longer rare to spend 80 euros on a desultory meal accompanied by a 50cl bottle of the cheapest wine. Add another four or five euros if you want better than a carafe of unchilled tap water.
Everywhere in France, there are noble exceptions but, like the French chef Michel Roux, I have reluctantly become more trusting of London restaurants.
Fait mason is designed to encourage restaurants to serve food made from raw ingredients, avoiding the short cuts of packets and preparations that have become so prevalent.
Dishes that pass muster will appear on menus with a smug little casserole symbol. But why not have another logo, a thumbs-down or question mark perhaps, on courses based on bought-in products?
Then there is the matter of enforcement. The mind boggles at the prospect of an army of dedicated inspectors on the look-out for bottles of vinaigrette, vacuum-packed coq au vin and sachets of sauce.
How many will there be? The very question has restaurateurs “laughing quietly in the back kitchen”, according to Marianne magazine, which detects an example of the socialist government’s ability to make a lousy idea seem respectable.
Certainly, the scheme does nothing to address inadequate staffing levels or rotten value for money. Let us see if, a year from now, it has made a blind bit of difference to quality.
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Pre-prepared or fresh, sauce Hollandaise is proving indigestible for French voters.
It is hard to summon too much sympathy for the beleaguered president. Such have been the disappointments of the first half of his presidential mandate that his approval rate – 16 per cent according to one recent poll – might be considered a little high. His Bastille Day televised press conference was a damp squib.
And along with rising taxes, relentless unemployment and government failure to stem immigration, the grievances of the public include the casual frequency of life-disrupting strikes.
These are a long-established feature of French society, as familiar when power at the Elysée or Matignon, or both, resides with the right. But recent action, by the usual suspects at SNCF and crews of SNCM’s hopelessly uncompetitive ferries, have caused particular anger, as witnessed in televised scenes of exasperated rail passengers or Corsican small businesses starved of tourist trade.
At least a president of the left should be able to count on the goodwill of the unions. Yet three of them stomped petulantly out of the vaunted “social conference”, where job creation was top of the agenda.
It brought back sharp reminders of the British Labour politician Barbara Castle trying in vain to persuade unions to accept modest reform in the late 1960s. They ended up with Margaret Thatcher’s rather sterner medicine.
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