Is France really?

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Beau R

I'd say both, although there are other countries that are equally as well suited for either or both. France is just the most well known of all countries in this respect.

Sacha D

French food is excellent

and the pastry is delicious too

yeah both then

Rillifane

Your questions are more complex than they may appear to some and cannot be answered with a simple yes or no.

The question concerning pastry is perhaps easier because pastry (and I am assuming you mean generally sweet pastries) is a craft which has its main practitioners in the West. Asian cooks have little by way of a tradition of pastry or of sweets as a distinct part of a meal. My personal preference in pastries is for the Italian but in terms of elaborate preparations I think both Austrian and French pastry cooks are ahead. As between those two I think the French are more varied and imaginative but opinions may vary.

The culinary arts question is almost impossible to answer.

France is the center for French culinary arts but not for Italian or Chinese or Indian or Japanese culinary arts and these cuisines are as complex, varied, and exciting as French cuisine.

French culinary standards in regard to French food are very high and the quality of French food in almost every little cafe or bistro in Paris is excellent. On the other hand, the French standards for non-French food are often laughably bad and there are a plethora of places in Paris selling execrable, bland chili and nachos or hideous second rate Chinese or Indian food to Parisians who don't have a clue they are eating garbage.

In fact, it can be argued that the French have fairly unadventurous palates. Chefs cooking the aforementioned bland chili and hideous Asian food have told me that the food is so wretched because the French won't eat the real thing.

If you were to ask who is the world's greatest living culinary genius then most foodies would agree that it is Ferran AdriÃ who is from Barcelona (Indeed Joel Robuchon and Paul Bocuse, France's two most famous chefs agree).

So what can one make of all this?

Probably that such judgements and comparisons have no real value and that cuisine is too complex a thing to be put into neat little boxes in any meaningful way.

Vez

I think both..

Both.

Mimi

BOTH =)

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