Before I get into that, I would like to present to you the breakfast and dinner I nibbled yesterday. Lunch was not pictured because it was a big ole salad(not exciting).
I bought Whole Rye Bread the other day and fell in love with how darn healthy it tasted. Half a piece with my normal peanut butter and apple breakfast was deeelightful and a tad more filling.
Might I add that my mom is a truly magnificent lady. She sent me a care package filled with peanut butter, pro bars, trio nut bars, oatmeal and a gift card to get a few new dresses :) You're the best mom in the whole world.
Skip ahead to dinner.... I made myself a half sandwich with canned salmon mixed with hummus. That's it, hummus and salmon. I put a boat load of sprouts and red onion for some texture and made a salad on the side. The yellow stuff is brown mustard. I am a mustard addict.
I recommend the hummus+ salmon combo. So much better than mayo.
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| I bleed sprouts. |
things i ate in France when i was 17
A quick schpeal about my time in France...I took French in high school and every year, my French teacher would take some of her students to France and pair each one of us off with a French student who was wanted to take in an American student. I was lucky to stay with a gorgeous French girl my age in Lille, France.
I still keep in contact with her. In fact, I even saw her last summer when she came to NYC! I also get to see her in June when I go to France with my school. It's so awesome to have international friends.
So back to the good stuff.
The French eat differently than Americans.
1. They eat very light breakfasts
2. Their main meal is lunch and even if they work, they tend to have a longer time to eat lunch or go home to eat it with their family
3. They eat very light dinners
4. They don't really eat snacks
5. Immediately after dinner they eat fruit or yogurt for dessert
It's true. French people are skinny. They don't over eat and they save the sweets for special occasions. However, more French people smoke. They also don't work out like (many) Americans do. Keep this in mind.
Breakfast
At 17, I was in the prime of drinking loads of coffee. I was working at Starbucks back then, so when I found out the family I was staying with didn't drink coffee...I might have had a slight panic attack.
The mom was so sweet. Once she found out I was an addict, she made me coffee every morning. The French make amazingly dark and rich coffee. Just the way I like it. Mmmm.
The French teenagers and kids eat a funky thing for breakfast. The most popular thing to manger is a bowl of warmed milk with cocoa powder stirred in and a big hunk of bageutte to dip into it. My French host would eat this every morning.
I tried it the first morning. It was fun to try their classic breakfast. I would have eaten it every day except the next morning when I walked down to the kitchen to discover this on the table:
By the way, if you want to make me the happiest girl in the world....find this and send it to me. I might fall over with joy if I ever get my hands on it again. I haven't had this since. It might have been my favorite part of the entire trip.
I ate it every morning with milk. Of course I only ate 1/4 cup of it in a huge bowl of milk because I would have looked like a porky American if I had filled the bowl with the amount that I REALLY wanted to eat.
I did have a chance to eat a croissant as well as a chocolate croissant on special mornings. They were fresh from the boulangerie (bakery) too. The French don't really eat croissants every morning...unfortunately.
Lunch:
Like I said, lunch was basically our dinner. We all sat around the table to eat a large home cooked meal.
We always started with a baguette and some sort of salad. We'd go around the table tearing off pieces of a baguette and eat it with salads like shredded carrots with raisins, cucumber salad or shaved beet salad.
After lunch we would eat a piece of fruit. I remember eating a lot of pears and plums.
afternoon coffee:
We often times would grab coffee in the afternoon. I got in the habit of ordering my cappuccino avec chantilly....cappuccino with whipped cream. A friend of my host ordered it one day and got me hooked.
Dinner:
We seemed to eat random dinners a lot. One time her dad made us crepes, another time we ate pizza with a lot of ham...and one time we ate (i kid you not) plain spaghetti with hot dogs and red sauce...
I would say my least favorite meal was dinner. However, I loved the fact that we would all eat yogurt or chocolate mousse pudding directly after. The French eat A TON of yogurt. I remember walking by the yogurt aisle in complete aww.
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| i know! |
On Friday nights and the weekend, my host and I would go to parties with her friends. It was so fun. They drink champagne instead of cheap beer. The men wear polos with popped collars and kiss your cheek as you walk through the door.
Since we were up so late, we often would go back to one of her friend's house and have a little snack. Mmmm this is where Nutella came into the picture. THEY LOVE NUTELLA.
(it's there peanut butter)
Nutella smeared on bread was the big go-to late night snack.
One day my host took me to downtown Lille for kebab. There "junk food fave". Similar to Middle Eastern rotisserie meat served on bread with mayo and french fries. It was so incredibly good.
My trip wouldn't have been complete without a crepe with nutella and strawberries. I ordered one on my last day to cure my craving for a true French crepe. It's crazy that I didn't get one my first time in France when I was 15...
Over all, I loved the food in France. However, I missed my peanut butter and meals that didn't include ham.
What's your experience with eating food in different countries?
Any good stories or funny stories?
