French Food: Sandwiches & Everyday Food

Covid, Fast Food and Today’s Food culture

The French eat a lot of sandwiches.

In the hospitality sector in France, 8 of 10 restaurants that opened across the country last year were fast food. In France, “fast food” will include McDonald’s (“Mack – Doh”) and any kind of restaurant that does takeaway, including pop-ups of high-end restaurants and of all kinds of non-French cuisine. If it’s not a sit-down meal, it might be considered fast food here.

The French culinary landscape was changed by Covid-19 and is still adapting to changing food trends. Restaurants have struggled in recent years and many people have changed their habits and simply don’t want to spend as much time sitting down for a meal. French restauranteurs have had to adapt.

Yet sandwiches have long been popular. It’s not worth getting into the history but to say at some point, someone put meat on bread and it was seen as a good idea. After extended lockdowns, even high-end restaurants began offering takeaway options, like the Sweetbread Sandwich from Pouliche, which was a bit of a sensation.

It’s more about the bread here

There is a greater emphasize on the bread of a sandwich here. In the US, we tend to jam lots of ingredients onto just enough bread to keep it all together. As a result, most bakeries sell sandwiches, varying in quality, with a few specials to keep it interesting.

The typical bakery sandwich here has butter, then a single layer of meat and a couple of veggies. That’s it.

If you want to make a good French sandwich, start with fantastic bread and use high quality butter and you’re mostly there. Then add just enough ingredients for whatever sandwich you like.

The most common sandwich here by far is the Jambon-Buerre sandwich, or ham and butter. Thirty million of these are sold every day with over 1 billion sold for the last 15 years, meaning that on average, every other French person is eating a ham and butter sandwich every day of the year. France is the only place in the world where another sandwich surpasses hamburger sales - even more than the 560 million Big Macs sold in the US annually.

When I told a French friend about it, he insisted that it wasn’t true and that he never eats it. He then went on to describe what he had for breakfast that morning: a ham and butter sandwich.

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Recipes

Note: as with all things, the fewer ingredients you use, the more important each one is. High quality butter, excellent ham and bread are what make this simple sandwich impressively good.  

Jambon Buerre sandwich

Start with the best baguette you can locate. You can make your own baguettes if you like, but that seems like a real pain in the ass for a sandwich.

Ingredients:

• baguette
• salted butter
• uncured ham.
• Add some cornichons for a bit of crunch if need some greenery in there.

Tomato & Mozzarella 

Start with an amazing baguette.

Layer on fresh mozzarella, then slices of ripe tomatoes (yes, they seem to put the tomatoes on top). Add a bit of olive oil, some basil, and a sprinkling of sea salt and pepper.

Salami, Butter, & Pickles (the Rosette-Buerre)

Get a nice baguette

Use a dry-cured Saucisson Sec or quality salami, if you can locate it. Spread on creamy salted butter and add plenty of cornichons.

Tuna Salad 

Nice baguette. Then:

Mix canned tuna with finely chopped shallot and mayonnaise, then spread it on a baguette. Add a squeeze of lemon, S&P to taste.