Famous French Cuisine

When you think of french cuisine, what does one think of? A very highly sophisticated palette including but not limited to hearty stews, amazing cheese, even better wine paired with generous portions of tender meat, thick creamy sauces and lots of flavor right? Well yes for the general frenchman or frenchwoman this would be spot on and any time spent here for a non cyclist would be a trip of a lifetime for their tastebuds. Unfortunately I do not fall into the non cyclist mold here and in 56 days of living here, that is 168 meals, I would say that I have eaten pasta for 110 of those, yes pasta is quite popular for breakfast on race days. What I cannot figure out is that I am so close to Italy, land of pasta, yet every time I eat the pasta here it is not individual noodles but it gets cooked into a pasta cube that gets cut up with a knife and fork. I do not get it, after experiencing this food more than a few times I decided I was going to watch the process here for cooking pasta. Using fresh pasta, not the hard stuff in boxes, it clearly says cook for 3 minutes at boiling. However, 3 minutes came and went, 6 minutes came and went and finally at 10 minutes, over 3 times the suggested cooking time did the temperature drop and pasta taken out. When I asked them about why they enjoy it when cooked longer, it was not the flavor is better, it was that is just how it has been done forever. A quote I have heard a lot lately-"It is what all the French racers do. If the pros do it, then it is the right thing to do." Well, needless to say I am not a huge fan of the french pasta cube and I offered to make pasta al dente once for them and well, they did not like it. It was undercooked and had to be chewed they said.

And for the awesome cheese and wine to get to taste, well that is out of the equation for sure. Cheese has fat in it and cannot be eaten and wine will make a cyclist slow, even a glass with dinner so no chance there. What about those awesome sauces, well once again they are said to have fat in them so no go on that front. What does that leave, oh yes, the stew. I do get to enjoy some really good vegetable soup. And lastly, meat, well if I get to eat that hearty meat, often times it will be cold because "its better to eat it that way for you." And the great flavors associated with it, well from what I have experienced, everything just gets dipped into dijon mustard.

So in summary my rules for eating are: No sugar, No fat, pasta for most meals and quite a bit of cold meat dipped in dijon mustard. However, every once in a blue moon instead of my director running me into town to go grocery shopping his girlfriend takes me in and boy oh boy does that make a difference. Some good belgian trappist beer, some honey, and even some milk and cereal. So far this has happened twice now and it was amazing.