Before I moved to France, I had put French cuisine on a pedestal. Then reality kind of bitch-slapped me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy living in France, and I have enjoyed some amazing meals here, both in restaurants and at someone’s home. But I was genuinely shocked by the following:

1)Shitty small town bakeries that make bread worse than the Wal-Mart bakery in America. Don’t get me wrong—I love French pastry and bread. But the bakeries do vary in quality. And yes, the ones in “small town France” tend to suck. The ones in big cities that have to actually compete are MUCH better. I remember a conversation with my in laws about this horrible bakery in the center of their little town. They admitted (FINALLY) that the bread and desserts there were “degoutant”. So why the hell did they torture me (and themselves) by buying from that terrible joint, that living embarrassment to French cuisine? They were friends with the owner, that’s why. Paul’s (it’s a chain) is much better, but they don’t get “small town authenticity” points because they are corporate. But their food is genuinely delicious.

2)Undersalted food. I’ve had to add salt and pepper on many dishes (both at someone’s place and at a restaurant). The typical French solution to undersalted meat is just to add sauce or mayonnaise. I do love the cream sauces they have here, but that’s not an excuse to undersalt the meat. And adding mayonnaise to undersalted meat is just disgusting.

3)Did you know that there is a French desert that is a flan with PRUNES? BARF.

4)Supermarket roast chicken that was genuinely gross and tasted WORSE than Wal-Mart or Ralph’s supermarket roast chicken.

In general, French ingredients are pretty high quality. I trust the organic/non-GMO labelled food here more than the ones in the US. But that doesn’t mean that they always prepare the food right. Shitty cooking can ruin perfectly great ingredients.

I’m not ragging on French food, I’m just asking that people need to be more “realistic” about it. Like any other cuisine, there are some winning dishes and there are some WTF dishes. Also, the French like to think that their culinary tradition is somehow superior to other traditions, and that’s why I would say that they are overrated. Do they have some great ideas? Of course they do! But BETTER than Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, etc? HELL NO. They just have better PR.