Whenever I travel, I always find it thrilling to go through the aisles in supermarkets and to ‘inspect’ what are the foods the locals would buy. Of course this can be a bit more difficult when the language of the place you are visiting is completely foreign to you.
My first time in France, I happened to stay in a hotel where there was a posh supermarket located in the building next to my hotel. It did stock up on some exotic food that are not French but I was still fascinated and itching to try those that I presumed was French.
Anyway, having met my partner, I am now able to differentiate the French versus the non-French foods and with that, why not join me in exploring the wonders in a French supermarket?
#1 Cold meats section
Charcuterie platter is something you will see cafés or restaurants offering as light food. It usually consists of different type of cold meats like jambon sec (dry cured ham or dry salted ham), jambon cuit (normal ham), terrine (ground lean meat with coarsely chopped ingredients), rillettes (a paste made with meat that is chopped, salted then slowly cooked in fat until it is tender) or pâté (cooked ground meat and fat minced into a type of paste). All these are normally served with french bread.
Instead of paying so much to eat in a café or restaurant, you can make your own charcuterie platter in your vacation home! When you browse the cold meats section, there are plenty to choose from. A general rule that I follow is to look out for any labels on the packaging that indicates that those meats are produits régionaux (local regional products), this will help assure that you are trying something French. Jambon de Bayonne is a favourite of mine. Sometimes you can even find packaging of 3 or 4 types of hams together, this allows you to be able to try a bit of everything!
Terrine and pâté can normally be found in similar packaging to those of hams. They can be made of different meats but in general, they are pork-based. Rillettes can be found in tubs, similar to plastic tubs in which yogurt or cream is sold in.
So all these are all ready-to-eat cold meat! Don’t forget to pair them with french bread, particularly la tradition (a baguette that has more texture than the normal french loaves) which you can find in any boulangerie (bakery)!
#2 Yummy sausages
French sausages are called saucisses. Usually, amongst the shelves of sausages you might come across sausage-looking foods called boudin. The common ones can be white – boudin blanc, or dark brown colored – boudin noir. Boudin blanc are made of pork, milk, eggs and sometimes pork liver and heart are added in. You can enjoy them grilled or sautéd, with salad on the side. As for boudin noir, it is made of pork and pig’s blood. Sometimes you can find them mixed with onions or apples. This can be enjoyed cold, by eating it straight out of the package! Myself, I prefer to have them slightly grilled, and pairing them with caramelised onions.
#3 Seafood
If you’re a fish or other seafood fan, you can often find ready-to-use French sauces to have with them. For example Hollandaise sauce, lemony and buttery, which would taste nice with your pan-fried fish or grilled prawns. Another French sauce I would recommend is the Normandy sauce, made from fish stock with chopped mushrooms which is thicken with egg yolks and heavy cream. If you do not mind a more herby sauce, you can also try the sauce à l’oseille, which is a buttery white-wine based sauce with sorrel.
Normally, in the seafood section, you can also find ready-made fish soup called soupe de poisson, found in longish glass jars. A Britanny dish, this warm and nutritious dish is great for winter. Normally, this is served with croutons and rouille on the side. Rouille is a yellowish sauce made of olive oil, garlic, breadcrumbs, saffron and chilli peppers, and it can also be found in small jars where the fish soups are displayed. How to enjoy this? Just heat up the soup in a pot and divide them up into soup bowls. To start, you can spread the rouille onto the croutons, then drop the croutons into the soup and let it soak before spooning them out to eat with your soup.
#4 Fresh Ready-to-eat dishes
Quite often, big supermarkets, or hypermarkets do prepare fresh ready-to-eat dishes, which can be found at their chilled food sections, and they are convenient and much less expensive than eating at a restaurant. So, don’t forget to look out for them too.
So there, some ideas for you to explore if you do visit supermarkets in France and have cooking facilities at your disposal. Another tip: bigger sized supermarkets usually provide you with wider varieties to choose from. Hope you will have an enjoyable ‘fooding’ time in trying out these ideas!
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