EUROPE - which country has the best cuisine?

I was swithering between Italy and France, then remembered a conversation I had with my mother about the number of teenage boys in France who'd know how to cook a half-decent meal compared to the number of teenage boys in Italy who could rustle up a good pasta and sauce. That, and the fact that too many restaurants I've been to in France recently have favoured gimmicks and flash over simple good food swung me in favour of the Boot.

i have a huge sentimental attachment to spanish food but in the country itself quality is hugely varying and i would never say it was a mind-blowing or sophisticated cuisine, certainly not comparable to italy or france. samewise portugal.

It's suddenly occurred to me that of all the many meals I've eaten in France, most of the worst have been in Paris.

Paris is quite far from the sea innit

I had with my mother about the number of teenage boys in France who'd know how to cook a half-decent meal compared to the number of teenage boys in Italy who could rustle up a good pasta and sauce.
-- Madchen, Tuesday, 8 January 2008 14:59 (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

My cousin bought a goat recently.

I'm not sure I've really had much proper French food. I can't really think of any. I went on a school exchange to Bordeaux when I was 13 but I don't remember the food being anything special at all, apart from quite liking crepes. The wine definitely made an impression though.

And yeah the only time I've been to France as an adult was to Paris and it was shit.

xposts

I voted Spain on a 'what i like to eat and actually can eat fairly often' basis i guess.

But what makes France that much better really?

heartbreaking.

just answer!

i had great food in Brittany just over a year ago but didn't strike me as particularly finer than what i've had in various Spanish coastal places. talking more everyday/standard dining rather than the gourmet/high-end/elite(?) cuisine i know France has a stronger rep for than anywhere else (but i have no real experience of that and wanna know if it still stands up, with examples offered).

foie gras

creme brulee

Surely Crystal kebabs will garner some votes for Turkey?

I don't know I've only had it 3 times in the past 3 years

swedish chef CRACKS ME THE F UP.

yeah i just gotta go with italy. it's just so bloody comforting.

although each time it was GOOD (except the last time when i had kebab meat on a plate, with chips, rather than a kebab)

Surely Crystal kebabs will garner some votes for Turkey?

I thought it was Lebanese.

problem is basque and catalans have great stuff but wouldn't want it to be known as spanish

the last time i was in france i ate lunch just before going to the airport. it was in someone's home. it was a very casual meal. the people who owned the home and whipped it up were a secretary and an electrician. it was:

scallops and langoustines, white wine
pork loin with potatoes, red wine
endive salad, a glass or two of water
cheeses (comte, gruyere)
cognac

this was just a normal saturday lunch cooked by normal people..!

i envied the father of the house, who i knew was about to light a cigar, prop his feet up, watch the television with the sound turned down, and fall asleep.

whilst receiving a blow job

what's lebanese -- kebabs? lebanese cuisine does have a lot of kebab action but i don't know if that's the origin. i'm sorry i tuned in late here.

Crystal Kebabs on Holloway Road is allegedly Lebanese

and part Alsatian

French again?

the kebabs are allegedly labrador and part dalmatian

the answer is england, although hardly any of it is english.

Scotland has better curries

^^^ this

wonder how that would be the case

fewer rugby lads

hmm

scotland has better and more widely available pakora

I do not agree with Tom D. Most of the curry houses of repute that I've visited in Scotland have served up something very red which appears to have been microwaved. There are, of course, a couple of corking exceptions. But on the whole I've been underwhelmed.

I imagine to do with immigrants from areas of India/Pakistan/Bangladesh which are renowned for their cuisine settling into specific areas in the UK - Glasgow for instance.

I'm sure curries in Scotland as a whole are crap, I'm only talking about Glasgow

Can you seriously imagine a French person having to boost their national cuisine by going 'well we've got some excellent Franco-Moroccan dishes'?

i hear the wee curry house is nice. and that it's nice even when there's wee in it so the ones without must be awesome.

I dunno, the Moroccan food I've had was well nice!

Can you seriously imagine a French person having to boost their national cuisine by going 'well we've got some excellent Franco-Moroccan dishes'?

I'm sure they wouldn't bother to give the Moroccans any credit

True, true.

Even less over their empire than we are.

I'm also talking about Glasgow, Tom. How somewhere like the Ashoka got a good reputation I'll never know. And I'm still searching for a great no-frills Pakistani byob place with maybe five dishes on the menu and but every one of them is a winner. But maybe I'm just an old fusspot.

the two people i mentioned who cooked that great meal have never eaten indian food in their lives. they are almost 60.

this kind of parochialism is a perhaps overlooked weakness of french cuisine.

Does the Ashoka have a good reputation these days?

I think being located on Ashton Lane must give it a certain je ne sais quoi.

I always thought it was considered kind of middlebrow meself - can curries be middlebrow? Well, you know what I mean

this kind of parochialism is a perhaps overlooked weakness of french cuisine.

similar point was made re Italians upthread. so funnily enough i think Britain can (at least potentially if not always in practice) have the best of both worlds as a result and this is one of the best things about living here.

What if instead of a service culture built on tipping otherwise underpaid waiting staff (I don't mean in the UK obv.) there was a culture of tipping the cooking staff?

India wasn't called The Jewel In The Crown for nothing!

is France big on cooking shows on TV? does it have it's own love-to-hate TV chef stars?