Why French cuisine/gastronomy is more famous than British ?
British cuisine’s reputation suffered during World War Two and for years afterwards because of food rationing. The French blow their own trumpets about their cuisine. The French believe that they are wonderful cooks. Restaurant meals in France, like elsewhere can be wonderful or terrible.
Britan’s bad reputation for cooking and food is no longer true. There are, in 2010, 140 Michelin starred Restaurants/ chefs in the UK, including, 4 who have 3 Michelin stars. British food and cooking are improving.
The French treat food very seriously, not just for the food itself but for the whole ambiance around food. meals are a social activity. French families sit at the table to eat and talk to one another. Children are taught at home and at school to treat food with reverence. Many French people value where food originates and they are willing to pay more for better ingredients, and they would rather have a little less high quality food than a huge pile of cheap food.
Commentators in France are actually bemoaning the decline in French cuisine.
From the era when French was the diplomatic language of the world and from their excessive use of spices (to hide the fact that the food was rotting/spoiled in pre-refrigeration days)…it just hung on. Blind taste tests of french cuisine on Americans proved disasterous. The vast majority of dishes were rejected as foul tasting….until the participant was told that it was a french dish (and it’s name)…then the people tried to backpedal and such cause they were afraid they’d look backwards or foolish. Frankly, Spanish, Italian, Egyptian and Greek cuisine is far superior to French.
