Les vrais états généraux de la restauration

On the 26th of February Daniel Bernard published an article in Marianne regarding the poor state of the nation’s gastronomic heritage. At the end of the article Marianne called for legislation to be passed which would require all restaurants to clearly identify which of their dishes have not been prepared on the premises. Since such a measure is our raison d’être here at Vegr we’ve translated and adapted Marianne’s call to arms into English. Original article available here.

Since 1998 the law reserves the term ‘boulangerie’ for those professionals who choose their own raw ingredients, knead their own dough and whose bread is fermented, formed into its final shape and cooked on the premises of sale. This method of transparency ensured the sustainability of an economic activity severely threatened at the time by large-scale distributors and industrial bakers. It’s a simply effective method of informing the general public on the provenance of their daily bread, one presently denied us when it comes to restaurants. To know that a bakery is a true boulangerie it suffices to look at the signage above their door, their use of the term ensures they don’t merely heat up frozen baguettes and croissants. The love the French once had for little restaurants, bistros and brasseries has developed into disaffection, an indifference to broken promises of quality.

The lowering of VAT across the catering section, which could only ever have lowered the bill by cents, was immensely profitable to the empirically-minded chain restaurants. These benefitted from prime locations to sell frozen French fries by the bushel and crèmes brûlées by the kilo. The French don’t even need to travel any more to be served what is deemed to be ‘tourist food’. Neither is this industrial carnage exclusive to larger cities- wholesalers currently deliver to every little village in France serving regional specialties.

What French restauration needs right now, the vital ingredient they most lack in the present day, is the trust of its customers. Their confidence in the service provided and in the meals they are served. Whatever new measure is introduced to stimulate this cannot be yet another ‘quality-assured’ logo as it would only be one among very many already in existence. The new measure should take into account public health and introduce awareness of exactly how the meal has been put together: Every restaurant should be required by law to clearly indicate which of the dishes have not been cooked on the premises and prepared from fresh raw produce. Frozen factory made ready-meals would then be explicitly revealed leaving the customer with more knowledge about what choice they have on the menu, leading them to understand exactly what is in their food.

The critics of such a regulation will undoubtedly start crying that customers, on knowing the industrial and chemical origins of their food, will inevitably just leave restaurants for dead altogether. Practically speaking the desired measure should incite France’s restaurant-going public to refuse to settle for low-grade culinary deceit. The entire production chain that ends with the consumer dining in the restaurant would be revitalised: the farming sector could be better compensated for the production of higher quality ingredients; seasonal products and dishes would then be cheaper; these would then be more affordable to the consumer and lead to generally happier diners. In Italy the requirement of indicating all frozen products has done nothing to hurt industry in the slightest and there is no reason to suspect France is any different.

French cuisine today is the last area of domestic produce where fraudulence is still tolerated when it comes to quality. The contents of our plates are in the hands of lobbyists and their French ministers who tend the law heavily in their own interests. Are we really to believe that these are the people best left to decide on the ingredients of what ends up on our dinner plates?

A.H.