Paris_ City Guide (Lonely Planet, 7th Edition) - Lonely Planet [135]
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EATING IN ORDER
At a traditional French meal – be it lunch starting at around 1pm or dinner at about 8.30pm – courses are served as follows:
Apéritif – a predinner drink
Hors d’œuvre – appetisers; cold and/or warm snacks served before the start of the meal
Entrée – first course or starter
Plat principal – main course
Salade – salad, usually a relatively simple green one with vinaigrette dressing
Fromage – cheese
Dessert – pudding
Fruit – sometimes served in place of dessert
Café – coffee, almost always drunk black
Digestif – digestive; an after-dinner drink
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CELEBRATING WITH FOOD
It may sound facile but food itself makes people here celebrated. There are birthdays and engagements and weddings and christenings and, like everywhere, special holidays, usually based in religion.
One tradition that is very much alive is Le Jour des Rois (Day of the Kings), which falls on 6 January and marks the feast of the Épiphanie (Epiphany), when the Three Wise Men called on the Infant Jesus. A galette des rois (literally ‘kings’ cake’; a puff pastry tart with frangipane cream), which has a little dried bean (or a porcelain figurine) hidden inside and is topped with a gold paper crown, is placed on the table. The youngest person in the room goes under the table and calls out which member of the party should get each slice. The person who gets the bean is named king or queen, dons the crown and chooses his or her consort. This tradition is popular not just among families but also at offices and dinner parties.
At Chandeleur (Candlemas, marking the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary) on 2 February, family and friends gather together in their kitchens to make crêpes de la Chandeleur (sweet Candlemas pancakes).
Pâques (Easter) is marked as elsewhere with œufs au chocolat (chocolate eggs) – here filled with candy fish and chickens – and there is always an egg hunt for the kids. The traditional meal at Easter lunch is agneau (lamb) or jambon de Pâques (Easter ham).
After the dinde aux marrons (turkey stuffed with chestnuts) eaten at lunch on Noël (Christmas), a bÛche de Noël, a ‘Yule log’ of chocolate and cream or ice cream, is served.
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ETIQUETTE
French people do not eat in the clatter/clutter style of the Chinese or with the exuberance and sheer gusto of, say, the Italians. A meal is an artistic and sensual delight to most people here, something to be savoured and enjoyed with a certain amount of style and savoir-vivre. That said, it is easy to cause offence at a French table, and manners here have more to do with common sense than learned behaviour. Still, there are subtle differences in the way French people handle themselves while eating that are worth pointing out.
A French table will be set for all courses at restaurants (not always at home), with two forks, two knives and a large spoon for soup or dessert. When diners finish each course, they cross their knife and fork (not lay them side by side) face down on the plate to be cleared away. If there’s only one knife and fork at your setting, you should place the cutlery back on the table after each course.
At a dinner party courses may not be served in the order to which you are accustomed; salad may follow the main course, for example, and cheese always precedes dessert (see left). A separate plate for bread may or may not be provided. If it is missing, rest the slice on the edge of the main plate or on the tablecloth itself. It is quite acceptable – in fact, encouraged – to sop up sauces and juices with slices of bread, though some people use a fork instead of their hands to do so.
You will not be expected to know the intricacies of how to cut different types of cheese but at least try to remember the basic rules (see opposite). If there are wine glasses of varying sizes at each place