Lunchtime Industriel Complex - talking food in France

Lunch and complaints

I work in a shared office within a beautiful decommissioned church, and despite our independence, we all gather for lunch at a table in the former nave. It's a lively scene with microwaves and the coffee machine buzzing for 90 minutes as people join in. Eating alone is unusual here, and today, we discussed the surprising presence of free prepackaged Mexican and Indian meals instead of the usual fruit, which is preferred.

Thanks for reading Keith’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

It’s all free, but complaining is also another French national pastime. Everyone has an opinion about food here or it certainly seems that way.

One guy was poking around a plate of rice and beans with a spoon. He seemed to be working his way through the food more than eating it. He moved it back and forth around the plate like a child might.

“Is it any good?” I asked him.

He shrugged, looking a bit sad about it.

“They’re really bland,” someone person said, I just drowned mine in hot sauce.”

“Then it just tastes like hot sauce! That must be terrible!” She sounded outraged. There is simply no way that anyone could actually be that outraged about rice and beans.

This launched a whole conversation about hot sauces and the Scoville scale. The discussion of hot sauces was brief and ended with a consensus among most of the people that, no matter how hot they are, they are bad for French food.

‘Industriel’ Food – the French curse

After that, someone went on to read all the ingredients and preservatives in the premade packets. This got every single person at the table to say something. That never happens.

“Really,” one man said, “just look at this. It is rice and beans, basically, but there are 20 ingredients in this. My food has beans, carrots, and butter. Three ingredients, all of them from France.”

“Wait. This stuff got a ‘B’?”

“The whole food grading system is wrong now. They have adjusted it so they can accept the food from South America.”

“Is that from South America?”

“Brazil, it says.”

“Mexican food and Indian food from Brazil?”

“Yes, that’s it. But look at the ingredients: preservative, salt, salt, preservative, sugar. It’s ‘industriel’.”

"Industriel" seems to be a genuine curse word about food in France. “Industriel” seems to be treated as the antithesis of all real and true French food. As opposed to locally produced, healthier options, or whatever. At the same time, the majority of these ‘industriel’ foods are made in France and are really, really popular. Say what you like about processed foods, folks like them.

Almost all of them said "Industriel," “yes, it is industriel…” in response, like a call and response one might here in church. One guy was chomping through a microwaveable hamburger as he said it.

‘Real’ French food always gets an A

The conversation carried on for a while as they discussed the official government grading system, how food standards are changing and so on. There was a lot of confusion over the A-B-C-D-E food grading system that gave Mexican vegetarian chili from Brazil a B even with all the additional ingredients, preservatives, salt and so on.

The remade meals were at once too bland, too spicy, and far too industriel.  

“The food grading system is corrupt.”

“The government is corrupt!” (You’re bound to hear that in almost any conversation about any topic of any time, anywhere.)

“French ingredients have purity laws…”

“You have no idea what is in these things.”

“God, what the hell do they grow those beans in? What are the laws like in Brazil of all places?”

…and so on.

It went on like this for about 20 minutes, arguing the merits and problems of a sack of premade rice and beans.

“This is not healthy food,” a woman who arrived late with what looked like a single slice of ham and an apple for lunch.

“This can’t be good for you,” said another.

Yet, as everyone finished their food and made coffees, the conversations went quiet. A few people went back to their desks, each taking a sacks of the Industriel rice and beans with them.

After all, free is free.

And then those that were left wandered out on the street to smoke cigarettes.

Thanks for reading Keith’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.