The new sign on French menus | Hacker News Reader

The new sign on French menus

bbc.co.uk

70 pointsdmmalam27 comments

To take a contrarian point of view, I have to agree with one of the chef's in the article. If I knew buying a prepackaged type of food would taste better to customers than what I can make in house 99% of the time, then wouldn't it be pretty stupid not to use that instead?

I've been using an automated espresso machine at home and what it makes tastes better than most of the fancy coffee shops in San Francisco.

When stuff gets automated it takes that fun out of things, but the end result improves regardless.

I agree with "what tastes good" but the problem is if prepackaged tastes better than you can make then just sell me the package and I'll re-heat it at home.

I don't know why but I expect food at a restaurant to be made at the restaurant and generally the same day. If I wanted packaged food I would have gone to the supermarket and bought packaged food.

I guess what I'm saying is just be honest about it. If you think people are fine going to a restaurant for re-heated packaged food then say so on the menu. For whatever reason it feels dishonest to not do so.

Are you a chef? What makes you think you can make prepackaged food at home as well as a chef?

Do you have ambiance at home?

Do you have other random people go so you can people watch?

Do you have a wide variety of meals so all the people you invite can eat what they want?

Is your house central for everyone to go to?

Do you have all the machines to properly prepare the pre packaged food?

Can you go home early to start the processes some of which might take hours before the meal?

Do you have a good selection of beer and wine?

Can you serve food with the style of a waiter (And not mind not eating while everyone else does)

Edit: Admittedly I don't eat steak at restaurants now I have a sous vide machine. But it still takes work to make, and washing & cleaning that won't fit in a dishwasher. But there's obviously always still many things on a menu I nether have the knowledge or the tools to make at home, pre-packaged or not.

Those are all good points.

I think my basic objection is it feels like I'm being deceived. It's like going to a concert and finding out they're just playing a recording and pretending to play their instrument live or sing live. Sure there's the crowd, the venue, the stage, the show, but at a basic level I paid for a live performance, not a recording. Similarly I paid for a meal made by the restaurant, not made by someone else and just served at the restaurant.

Just be honest about it.

I don't get upset when the menu says "Donuts from Dynamo Donuts" or "Ice Cream from Humphry Slocombe" so tell me "Chicken Kiev by Sarah Lee" if that's the case.

The with a prepackaged food the chef has no influence on the food. And so neither the patrons of the restaurant. Having the choice to bar the prepackaged food gives consumers better control on many aspects of the food. Directly or indirectly.

Not necessarily true. The prepackaged food industry has plenty of offerings for foods that are partially prepared cutting out tedious (time consuming) or expensive parts of the prep process while still requiring further processing by a cook for finish. Like most things this is not as black and white as many here are making it out to be.

Even for the foods that are nearly completely ready to server the ingredients, recipes, and flavor profiles may have been created by the actual chef from the restaurant. The packaging process offloads the labor in this case but not the creativity. In that case the argument against prepackaged food seems to be against time/place shifting labor more than anything else.

The concern wasn't about it being better or cheaper, it was that most restaurants were claiming that the food was home made while it was prepackaged. It's not forbidden to serve prepackaged food.

> I've been using an automated espresso machine at home and what it makes tastes better than most of the fancy coffee shops in San Francisco.

Do you use the same beans? I find that many of the fancy coffee shops in San Francisco lately are doing the lightly-roasted, sour-tasting coffee thing, which I'm not really into.

> lightly-roasted, sour-tasting coffee thing

A well made espresso with light-medium roast bean should taste fruity and maybe a little tangy and sweet, though this depends on no end of factors. Coffee Angel around Dublin is a good one.

Most of the beans I saw when visiting the US (even in the hipster artisan places) were roasted to the point of being indistinguishable from toner and made for bitter, unpleasant coffee.

Still, I needed my hit.

It's not comparable to your automatic espresso machine.

Your espresso machines doesn't pack the espresso with conservatives, possibly freezes it for storage, and then claim to make you a fresh cup of home made espresso, which cost you more as it's "home-made"

Sure - but I don't think it should be labelled as "home-made"

Here is that symbol in case anyone wants it, I kind of like the design. http://www.economie.gouv.fr/files/fait_maison_371px_0.png

I had no idea what it meant until the article described it. I can't unsee the pot now, but I still think it is confusing.

Or, you can stick to restaurants with menus that offer a handful of dishes only -- say a dozen at most. If they carry more than that, the logistics involved to get the ingredients fresh rules out that anything is home made.

A lot of places around where I'm at (NYC) get their pies/pastries from a neighborhood bakery. It doesn't seem to me that there is much of a difference between buying a pie from the bakery or buying a slice of it from the restaurant 2 doors down.

I'm also curious how this affects Sous Vide. If they vacuum seal and freeze on site is it still "home made"?

If you do your research beforehand, and don't just follow a huge queue of tourists off a bus and into a restaurant, you'll likely have a much better experience.

Except that it's not that easy even for the French. I'm sure the law wasn't passed for tourists. Even some fancier restaurants were found to have been just warming up pre-made dishes. If a restaurant is not required to disclose this information, how would one ever find out?

Although, I do agree that a small bit of research will get you away from the touristy restaurants and into some more "local" places. Sometimes it's even just a matter of getting off the main streets.

> Even some fancier restaurants were found to have been just warming up pre-made dishes. If a restaurant is not required to disclose this information, how would one ever find out?

If the meal provides experienced utility (enjoyment, etc.) that justifies the cost, why do you care?

Prepackaged foods tend to be loaded with preservatives and who-knows-what-else. I know it's naive to think all restaurants are only using fresh ingredients, but a lot of restaurants also claim to use the freshest ingredients, when they aren't.

Also, you don't know if it will provide enjoyment to justify the cost before you eat it...

> If the meal provides experienced utility (enjoyment, etc.) that justifies the cost, why do you care?

Why wouldn't you care? Knowing that the meal has been prepared by the restaurant instead of an industrial factory somewhere does improve my enjoyment of it.

A meal at a restaurant is more than just taste and nutrients.

Because this is not what you expect when you go to a restaurant and they sell you a "house made apple pie" that they just bought frozen and added a house made cream to it. They do that in many restaurants and I believe they won't be able to do it after the new law is passed.

Indeed. As a Parisian, I can confirm that it's not easy. The worst part being that traditional French cuisine is slowly disappearing and making room for globalized food court variety dishes like stupid burgers, "Chinese" fast food, döner kebaps and myriad of pasta places, each one more bland than the other one.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I came back from Canada to discover that burgers were all the rage amongst the Parisian 30-something affluent class. How we've fallen :/

Mustn't be easy for tourists really, your only option if you don't know the few places that still go the traditional way nowadays is to either get out of Paris and travel to the countryside or shell out for premium restaurants at 100 euros a meal.

So do you have any recommendations for traditional French cuisine in Paris? Especially any lesser known ones?

>If a restaurant is not required to disclose this information, how would one ever find out?

Ask them whether the food is homemade, and if they refuse to tell you, assume it isn't? Sure, they could lie, but that's already illegal.

If there's consumer demand for home-made food at restaurants, why can't they start advertising home-made dishes on their own? Why is a mandate necessary?

Because "home-made" has no strict (legal) definition so it's not illegal to lie or to approximate (the topping is home-made).

100% agree. You need to do a good amount of research before traveling anywhere, let alone somewhere with as much of a restaurant scene as France.

Nice little graphic, though I'm not sure it will get across the "home-made" message to tourists. And I tend to agree with the skeptical guy in the article that it will end up more trouble than it's worth.

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