french lunch
The old joke goes that a Frenchman can’t work in the mornings – he’s too hungry, nor in the afternoons because he’s too full. Well, maybe its still true. Everything still stops for lunch. If you are holidaying in France you should, too, it’s the best meal of the day.
We live near La Roche Bernard, a small town in southern Brittany, and have learnt a good deal about the French lunch.
Prices start at 8 euros, rising to 10 euros for the lunchtime menu. For those prices you will get a four course meal, often starting with a buffet, of which you can eat as much as goes on a plate (usually quite a small plate). Wine will usually be extra, but at one place we know a free litre bottle of red is placed on every table.
In large towns speed of throughput governs prices – an awful lot of office workers still eat in restaurants at lunchtime. So the best places are packed.
In the country, and small town the weekday lunch is subsidised by leftovers from Sunday lunchtime, when most families eat out. So on a good weekday the buffet will be a very generous offering of what wasn’t eaten at the weekend: prawns, chicken legs, salads, salami, smoked salmon, hard boiled eggs and mayonnaise. The entrée will be whatever the patron decides. In our part of Brittany there’s lots of fish and there’s a variety you wouldn’t believe. Then there will be cheese course, normally eaten without butter (if you ask for butter it’s a sign that you are English) but with knife and fork. Dessert is sometimes manufactured, sometimes “fait a main” on the premises.
It is fairly easy to spot the best eating places: they are the auberges, restaurants etc. with swarms of white vans and lorries, parked on their forecourts, parkings, and roadside verges.
Lunch is a better value meal than dinner in the evening, and taking lunch at a restaurant solves the problem of what to do in French lunchtimes when everything is shut.
Unsurprisingly.
Bon appetit !
More at ruelmain holidays gites in Brittany
