The Many Layers of French Cuisine

 At French Living we love telling the story of French culture through its cuisine. We do this with a varied and changing daily blackboard of dishes; with special events such as Discovery Evenings focusing on regions, people, culture, honouring the rich influences that make up its cuisine today.

France, like many other countries, is not one dimensional, but beautifully layered, enriched by its history and past. Some of the most beloved dishes, ingredients, and eating habits don’t actually come from traditional French cuisine at all. Instead, they come from North Africa, the Middle East, West Africa, and Southeast Asia, thanks to migration from former French colonies. When people move to another place, they look for a trace of their community in that new land. People like to have something to hold onto, a memory, something to remind them and to take them back to what they know and love. One of the first things that people do is recreate their dishes so they can feel as if they’re closer to home.

It is in the subtle weaving of these new flavours and cooking techniques when cultures merge that some of the most special dishes are born.

Couscous for example, reflects over a century of colonial rule in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia and today it is very much a part of French identity. It is adored in France. A soirée couscous is as common as a Sunday roast.

Kebabs, the king of French street food, came with Turkish, Lebanese, and North African workers.

Our Boudin Antillais is occasionally included on the daily blackboard, highlighting the flavours and charm of the Caribbean islands that are part of the overseas territories of France – Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Martin.

At French Living we embrace with open arms all these delicious influences, learning, sharing, spicing and evolving.

This is not a challenge to French identity – it IS French identity.

Explore this fuller story of French cuisine at our events, where classic dishes meet the broader, more unexpected flavours of France.

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