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!

((((( Meze )))))
Lebanese are my fave
And some of the Greek stuffed peppers or aubergines or tomatoes are LUSH

Seriously, move RIGHT away from French foods and give her stuff from elsewhere in the world

Do something like a spaghetti bolognese, shepherds pie, roast dinner, takeaway fish and chips

For a vegetarian?

It's OK, she's a French vegetarian which according to MIL means you eat meat just not a lot.😂

My veggie DD eats a lot of pasta / veg pizza / ploughmans / cheese, broccoli and potato bake, jackets - they are all quite easy. She also has Sunday roast without the roast meat.

I'm not British but much prefer the food in Britain. It has come a long way since I first moved here in the early 80's.
French food is overrated and very limited.
There are lots of good vegetarian recipes on line and as suggested can t go wrong with Turkish or Lebanese food and also Indian.
Indian food in France is awful as they just don't have the palette for it.

I’d def not try to emulate French food

She’s not in France, where the choice is incredibly limited, like Italy

Yeah yeah their national cuisine is great but variety is way better

I’d do platters of tabbouleh, falafel, hummus, pitta, feta, tomatoes. Buy in from your local Turkish place.

Weekend - a curry with homemade flatbread (piece of piss to make), a few homemade chutneys (whizz coriander etc in a little box processor). Nigel Slater does a yum pumpkin laksa which is great at this time of year

One night a cheese fest featuring vintage mature cheddar, Stilton, celery sticks, walnuts, grapes, good crackers

If she is vegetarian then I think she is going to be very pleasantly surprised by the UK offerings, especially in London

I’m not fully catering her she’s renting a room for six months. I will be taking her to my local Morrissons. I just thought for the first day getting to know her I would offer something.

Ottolenghi

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

Yes, I agree! Also, my french flatmate lives on pepperoni pizza (a big to for himself), or the occasional macaroni cheese or chinese meat and noodle ensemble. He has now got a rice cooker. He moans that when he goes home his mum cooks "all this fatty meat" which according to my friend is very typically french.

I love the fact that London and other British cities have EVERYBODY'S food.

Exactly like Paris then.

Yeah but we can get vegetarian food OUTSIDE the capital too. Incredible.

Actually i think france is better this year than it has been previous years. Ive even seen stuff like veggie burgers in some of the larger supermarkets. Its like being a veggie in the UK in the 80s , but at least its a step in the right direction.

As a vegetarian she's going to have a ball in the UK, especially London. There is literally a world of veggie food available to her there.

I'd take her to a 'classic' like Cranks (is it still there?), which was probably about the same, when first established in the early 1960s, as French vegetarian restaurants are now - but which rapidly became more accomplished.

Then tour the world! Indian, Chinese, Thai, even a chain like Wagammamas is better than French vegetarian food - and the reliability of being able to go in and get something veggie, fresh and good is marvellous in comparison.

In French restaurants, even specialist veggie ones, you mostly get versions of classic vegetable side dishes. Plus fish! Do check whether she eats fish, as there seems ot be a widespread assumption in France that veggies do.

As for lunch at home, simple soup or quiche, with salad and cheese would be fine. What's good about everyday French food is quality ingredients that taste of what they are, not like processed food and supermarket veg here. Good fresh food is good fresh food.

The French myth of British food being terrible dates from the post-war period and focuses narrowly on traditional British food, ignoring the vast array of other cuisines that have become established favourites here - both because our tradidtional cuisine is so limited and, we're not so precious about it as the French are about theirs.

How will Heinz tomato soup compare?

I remember a long winter spent eating endives in a watery white sauce far too often.

My DH is French and all their soup is made fresh though isn't as nice as fresh soups handmade in UK imo. He isn't keen on tinned soups, tends to refuse to use them, but would use the fresh readymade soups in cartons you get here. But if she's a student on a budget she may not be able to finance fancier food unless she cooks it herself. I would leave her to it. MIL spends about 6 hours a day cooking everyday, I would hate that.

She’s sweet. I’ve left her In Aldi and shown her Morrissons. She’s on a very tight budget and used to Lifl she said the prices are the same here

Tight budget then tins of chickpeas, tinned tomatoes, lentils will be good.

Oh she went to Iceland for some cheese for me and came back over the moon that they sell sweet potato fries she said they don’t do them in France.

You've broken the French woman!

She’s only been here 24 hours!! She doesn’t do spices bless her she’s only young I’ll have to find her some recipes

Thet French do like courgettes and figs... But not hot food (sweeping generalisation I know). Also very fond of cheese and filled savoury pancakes (bleugh) baked with bechamel (like cannelloni).