French cuisine guide
Where it comes from
French cooking’s influence comes less from its dishes than from its system: the brigade, the mother sauces, the codified techniques that Escoffier organised at the turn of the twentieth century. Much of what professional kitchens worldwide call basic method is French method under a different name.
Regional cooking pulls against the classical centre. Provence works in olive oil and vegetables, Normandy in butter, cream and apple, Alsace in a register closer to German cooking than Parisian.
Allergens and dietary needs
Butter, cream, egg and wheat run through the classical repertoire, and usually through the sauce rather than the named component — a dish listed as “duck breast, cherry” may still be dairy and gluten. Tag it on the item.
Sauce names should stay in French and gain a short base descriptor. Guests recognise béarnaise; they do not all know it is egg and butter.
Naming it on an English-language menu
Sauce names stay in French with a base attached — “beurre blanc, butter and white wine reduction” — which discloses the dairy in the same breath. Do not translate entrée; in English it will be read as the main course.
Set the doneness mapping explicitly. À point sits closer to medium-rare than to medium, and the gap between those two is a returned steak.
Staple ingredients
- butter
- cream
- wine
- wheat