Exactly how much better is French food over ours? I need a recipe!

[EachandEveryone]

I have a university student coming to stay for five months from Paris. A vegetarian. She has already joked that shes heard the food in London is rubbish and i guess she will find out soon enough that we have a huge variety of restaurants even in my rough neighbourhood. Very Turkish so she will have enough fresh vegetables and flat bread shops so she wont go hungry. I really wanted to have lunch for her when she arrived. Im not the most imaginative cook and im not veggy. Is there a straightforward recipe i can follow?

To top it all i met my new vet this week also from Paris who told me the food is crap here and who eats beans out of a tin!😆 so, i wont be servong beans on toast!

french restaurants in the main have almost the same menus in all of them. there is nowhere near the variety that any big city in the UK has.
If the French vet is such a foodie why is he / she eating beans out of a can and not buying some of the vast quantitiy of varied food we have in supermarkets and cooking something? Nob

sorry, nob was aimed at french vet, not you!!

Really easy one is sweet potato, feta, red onion and spinach feta parcels.

Fry cubes of sweet potato until soft with red onion and spinach until wilted. Take off the heat and sprinkle feta over it. Cut squares of filo pastry and arrange them on top of each like a star. Scoop mixture into the middle of the parcel and then fold up & seal at the top.

Bake until golden and serve with salad/veggies and a sweet chilli dip if you think it needs it.

Go basic. Crusty bread, cheese, buy a decent sort of pie - but have every ingredient very British - Stilton/Cornish Yarg etc

Slaver any food in cream and a tonne if butter and cheese, and it will be nice!

Like this
www.higgidy.co.uk/product/entirely-comforting-cauliflower-cheese-pie-thyme-crumb

I agree with simple...

Good bread
Nice cheeses
Good quality ham

Google Rachel Khoo, little Paris kitchen

I’m yet to taste bread in the UK that can match up to France though, otherwise I’d back the suggestion of bread.

For something lighter, a veggie quiche or frittata could be an option, with a fancy salad (spinach, feta, apple and walnut maybe?)

A lot of visitors to London think the food is crap because they've only hung around Oxford Circus. Most city centres have crap touristy stuff. Most of London's best restaurants are in neighbourhoods, not tourist areas.

And to be honest - veggie food in Paris is beyond crap! The rest of France isn't brilliant for it either either.

The best bread is in the UK - no contest, plus the range of foods we eat here is very wide compared to France, Spain and Italy (I only know these countries well enough).

A frittata is a good idea though - with lovely salad and bread with nice olive oil and a decent wine.

Yes because France is so known for its excellent vegetarian food I suspect the London has crap food ‘joke’ may come from someone that has mostly frequented the crappy chains commonly found in tourist spots whilst on holiday.

Veggie quiche or tart, with a well dressed green salad, followed by a cheeseboard, with decent bread would be a winner for me! (I am both French and a vegetarian if that counts for something)

I've been given chicken and sausages in France as my 'Vegetarian' option. The best was a 'veggie burger' in Paris which they said came 'medium rare'. It was half of a tomato (grilled) in a bun with a side salad (which included bacon).

But if you eat from a hot dog cart or 'pizza by the slice' stand in Leicester Square you get what you deserve!

Apart from bread and possibly yoghurts, I think the french can be pretentious and up their own arses when it comes to food.
I think often their fresh ingredients can be better quality, but im not particularly excited by french food in general, and theyre often rubbish at doing food of other nationalities.
My partner is french and ive had comments for bloody years about how shit english food is, as though its hilarious, while they serve me up some fucking tapioca, or do unidentified meat in a cream sauce and overcooked vegetables yet again.

Saying that, the best steaks ive ever eaten have always been in france, and I could eat my own body weight in banette and maroilles .

I would cook your normal food, which im sure is delicious, and if shes rude about it, then that says more about her.

Jokes about British food are so obnoxious - like any country has universally ‘good’ food. I lived in France for a year and the standard of home cooking I came across was worse than a British ‘foodie’ household - you get all the lovely bread and cheese yes, and pate, mussels etc. if that’s your thing, but there was a lot of very average cooking and butter pasta with chicken on the side going on.

I think quiche/frittata and fancy salad is a good recommendation!

get some good mature cheddar in too. We always take "seriously strong" when we go as you cant get a decent cheddar in france anywhere.

Do something like a spaghetti bolognese, shepherds pie, roast dinner, takeaway fish and chips. A really good curry. Halloumi kebab.
I never see those things in france

As an aside is it still the case that London is France’s 6th biggest city in terms of population - they must be eating somewhere!

Mmmm halloumi kebab - good suggestion!

Depends on how much you want to impress, and whether you can keep it up for 5 months!

I would say don't bother with quiche or tarts because inevitably they won't bear comparison with french ones. Unless you really love having your pastry critiqued by a ruder version of Paul Hollywood. Trust me, I've been there .

Some lovely Turkish food would be a great idea for lunch. Go to a deli and get some nice bits in - flatbreads, dips, some salads etc. Maybe make a soup if you think the weather might warrant something hot, you can make it in advance (although green soups lose their colour after a while and are best made fresh) . I love a nice lemony celeriac soup, but it's all down to taste.

There are loads of good veggie cookbooks, or cookbooks with great veggie recipes in. The newest Ottolenghi one is called Simple (although knowing him it isn't) and he's very good on delicious vegetarian dishes, even though I don't think this one is a vegetarian theme. Also The Roasting Tin has a vegetarian/vegan sequel, the original is a very handy book so this one could be very useful too. Good luck.

I had a really good smokey vegetarian bean chilli recently i might try and find it. Im guessing thats the kind of thing that can be made the day before. Shes a bloody student since when did they get so fancy? BTW should i be asking her to smuggle anything in her case? She did ask. Shes br8nging her bed pillows bless her they will take up loads of room. I was going to introduce to Georges at Asda on her first afternoon.

if shes bringing her own pillows, theyll probably be those big square ones that british bedding doesnt fit.

Apart from bread and possibly yoghurts, I think the french can be pretentious and up their own arses when it comes to food.

^
Mais oui

Greek yoghurt is best!

From Aldi?

Total /Fage