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becoming madame, cooking, food, France, french cuisine, french culture, healthy living, Life in Paris, lifestyle, proportion size, recipe, Travel
So last week we talked about varying food as the first of a three prong method of eating like the French. The second of these prongs is perhaps even more important, and certainly something I learned from living over here in France: portion size.
When I first started dating my husband, about a year after coming to France, we would take turns making dinners at his apartment – at the time mine was a tiny 18m² studio with only a kitchenette. Sometimes I’d come over with a bag full of groceries to prepare one of my tried and tested recipes and other evenings he’s whip something up that he’d learned from his mom.
My meals tended to be spaghetti with meatballs, chicken stir-fry, grilled cheese with ham, macaroni and cheese, burgers – good ol’ North American grub. I even made my grandmother’s Southern cornbread dressing with a honey glazed ham for New Year’s Day dinner that first year we were together. But it’s my husband’s meal choices that really make this story interesting.
Whereas I would cook up a pot of spaghetti that could feed us and 15 of our closest friends, a green salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, onions and red peppers along with a side of garlic bread – delighted with the prospect of blowing him away with my culinary talents – he would plan out and prepare an entrée, plat, cheese course and dessert alone these lines:
Radishes with baguette and sea-salt butter as an entrée, followed by a slice (no bigger than two-inches wide) of Quiche Lorraine, a yogurt, some nuggets of dark chocolate to satisfy our sweet tooth, and to top it all off a bottle of fabulous Medoc something or other wine. Alternatively, he might start us off with 2 slices of cantaloupe melon, followed by a chicken leg each in an apricot butter sauce, the requisite yogurt or a few bites of cheese and then end off with a scoop of ice cream over a poached pear.
You can imagine how I felt after a few nights of this. A little out-done maybe, shown-up and unrefined in my recipe selection for sure, but most of all I felt like I was over doing it. It’s not that my husband (then-boyfriend) didn’t enjoy my food. I have a rather eclectic repertoire of recipes from the places I’ve lived which keep things interesting – Southern fried chicken, Floridian coconut shrimp, Maple butter pancakes with the accompanying syrup, Montreal smoked meat sandwiches and of course boxes of Kraft Dinner that my mom would send over. It’s not that he didn’t like it; it’s just that he couldn’t even begin to finish the heaping mounds of food I’d pile onto his plate when it was my turn to do the cooking.
Eventually, he had to tell me. And I have to admit that I probably didn’t take it as well as I could have. “Trésor (a sweet name French people call each other), may I just have a half portion please?” He would ask. “I’m not that hungry tonight.” And how sweetly he would say those words each night I was cooking. At first, I told him that he could just leave what he didn’t want on his plate. Of course, I didn’t know this went against everything he’s been taught as a child about polite manners. Ultimately, he had to ask me if he could serve himself. This is when I swallowed my pride and took notice of the fact that something was fundamentally different between his way of eating and my own.
He not only ate slower, he ate much, much less than I did. And he never deprived himself of anything. He ate just enough to satisfy himself and then he moved on.
At the beginning, it seemed to me that he and I were eating more food when he was cooking than when I was. I mean, really, with the entrée, plat, cheese and dessert plus a baguette and wine, how much bigger could one meal get?! But the truth is, the only time we had to lie back on the sofa after dinner and unbutton our pants, moaning ‘oh my god, I ate too much’, was when I was in charge of the dinner.
Since then, I have learned a lifetime’s worth of wisdom about portion control and serving size. And a little about diet too. Would you believe me if I told you that if you eat the four smaller courses like the French do, including the cheese/yogurt course to aid digestion, you will end up eating less and being completely satisfied by your meal? I won’t be offended if you think I’m pulling your leg. I used to think so too.
Don’t take my words for it. Give it a try:
Instead of a plate of mixed green salad, followed by a plate of spaghetti with garlic bread and ending off with a piece of apple pie – which is a very traditional meal at my mom’s house – try an entrée of sliced cucumbers (no more than 8/person) with a dash of creamy French vinaigrette sprinkled with dill, followed by a small chicken breast grilled in a tbsp. of butter with a ½ tbsp. of sour cream and fresh parsley stirred in at the end of cooking to make a delicious sauce, then a yogurt and end off with 3 squares of Lindt 70% chocolate. Wash all that down with a nice glass of red wine.
Give it a try for a week varying the menus while sticking to the portion size. I’d be so interested to know how it turns out for you.
Our dinner last night is a good example of how much my eating and cooking habits have changed in the years since those first days of dating a Frenchman. Two nights ago, I made a rather North American concoction out of left overs – 300g of ground beef, 1 red onion, 1 red pepper, 1 cup of Basmati rice, 1 beef bouillon and 1 cup of water. I sautéed the onion and red pepper in a tbsp of butter and boiled my rice. Then I added the beef and once it was cooked poured in the water and the bouillon, letting it reduce to make a sauce. Whereas in the old days, I would have served this with a salad for one meal between the two of us, this week I made two dinners out of it for my husband and I – one with a small Greek salad as an entrée (small for two people = 1/3 cucumber, two small black tomatoes, a few olives & 40g feta cheese; sprinkled with olive oil, sea salt, ground pepper and oregano) and the second time with a small bowl of beef stock veggie soup (two ladles full each). Both meals were topped off by – of course – a yogurt, a few prunes and Mirabelles and a couple of squares of chocolate.
Notice that the proportions are generally about ½ of what I would have normally served back home. And notice too that we don’t worry too much about using non-fat butter or products like that. You can eat rich, delicious food because you end up not eating or wanting so much of it. In fact, the opposite is true: you eat such rich food that you are satisfied by a small portion of it.
The half rule is how I thought about portion size when I first began trying to make this change from over serving (and thus over eating) to healthy portions. I halved everything I put on the plates. The funny things is, after about a week or two of this type of eating, your body starts to crave the next course and so you’re satisfied with what you’ve had, ready to move on. It’s really quite amazing how that happens.
If you are like me eating a yogurt after dinner would be about as strange as eating an omelette for dinner. Of course, the French do both. And now I do too. But it wasn’t always like that. I had to get accustomed to it. The thing about the dairy course is that it helps with digestion. I personally find that cheese in the evening is a little heavy, so I prefer a yogurt. And the benefits of yogurt are phenomenal. With “bifidus” or the Bifidobacteria in yogurt, this course does wonders keeping you regular while the creamy, rich texture is so fulfilling you feel genuinely satisfied for the rest of the evening. I find, however, that yogurt is not the same in North America as it is in France. The closest I’ve come at home to what we have here is Greek yogurt, unless you make it yourself.
A note on bread: Many people I’ve talked to, including my own precious stepdad, think that the French example gives them license to eat a tremendous amount of bread. This simply isn’t true. The reason is a matter of substance rather than quantity. That is, real French baguette is very light and airy not nearly as dense as our bread in North America. So when I used to serve three slices of garlic bread made from a large white crusty loaf, this was more “bread” per person than eating an entire baguette would be. Generally in France, a demi baguette should suffice for a couple for one meal. The French use the baguette for saucing (mopping up the sauce left on the plate) after the salad and after the main dish and then they have a slice or two with the cheese course (bread doesn’t accompany yogurt). Let’s say the average would therefore be about 4 slices of baguette per person. In sheer substance, that would compare to about one piece of sliced bread back home.
All this comes naturally to me now. I wouldn’t dream of serving an overflowing plate of spaghetti anymore. And even when I’m back at my mom’s house, I yearn for my Perle de Lait yogurt after dinner. But it took time to get the hang of this way of eating. By trial and error mostly, and paying very close attention. It helped me enormously to live with someone who has learned from a thousand years of common knowledge how to eat this way. For my husband, there is no other way to eat properly.
He eats regularly beginning at 8am with his coffee and toast or cereal, lunch at 12:30 and dinner around 8pm or 8:30. Snacks aren’t a part of his diet except for the occasional aperitif, a few handfuls of olives, nuts or a few rounds of saucisson. But now I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll pick up on this thought next time with prong numéro three of Eating like the French.
Oh my God, I love this post! And I am absolutely going to try eating this way, convincing my family to will be another challenge though! Thanks for the detailed account on how it’s done.
Laura V.
I’m delighted you enjoyed it, Laura! As I mentioned in another comment, it’s not always easy when surrounded with so much excess, but it certainly can be done. Be careful with pre-packaged portions and try the courses to teach your body not to fill up on one because other rich and delicious ones are coming. Take care!
If it weren’t for Weight Watchers educating me to be aware of portion sizes on THIS side of the Atlantic, I’d still be carrying around extra weight. I think a lot of it is habit. We eat the way we do because, well, that’s what we do, isn’t it?
I wasn’t raised to “clean my plate” but, the portions were waaay too big.
Now, if I ate like the French do, as you so beautifully describe in your post, I’d be satisfied AND thinner!
It makes sense to moi.
That’s true, WW does do a great job at teaching people about portion size. I think the Jenny program does to. No matter how you get there, it’s definitely a better way to live! Wishing you a wonderful weekend from Paris!
You are so kind – please enjoy your weekend, too! (I thought of you last night. You should have seen the size of the salad I made for dinner. It was for two people, but in France, I’m sure it would serve at least eight!) LOL!
This is very timely! I just ate lunch (in the US) at a new place that sells gelato and espresso, along with quiches, salads and crepes. There’s a little place in Nice that I like that also sells crepes (galettes). Today’s crepe was at least three times as big as the ones in Nice, and thicker – I left a lot of the crepe, which didn’t have the right texture besides being huge. I recently ate at another US place claiming to serve crepes, where not only was the crepe gargantuan, but the filling was overflowing.
I was just thinking that this underlines the reason why Americans are (so often) overweight while the French are (so often) not, when I came home and read this piece.
I grew up in the UK, and when I moved to the US (way back in 1975) I just couldn’t believe how big the portions were, never mind the all-you-could-eat buffets, where my co-workers would go back for another loaded plate well after I had given up.
My husband eats until his plate is empty. I eat until I am satisfied. He wonders how I stay slim while he struggles to lose a few pounds. Gee. I wonder why!
Great post. Made me hungry!
It’s the funniest thing, this idea that we have to finish our plates. I didn’t grow up with that education at all. But my husband was taught out of politeness and the general French dislike of waste to finish his. Of course, you are given so much less here. He cannot bring himself to finish a meal at a US or Canadian restaurant, though. In fact, we often order off the apps menu or share a meal if we go out back home. We must get the message out to everybody who grew up thinking that they HAD to finish their plates – my stepdad is one of them – that the rule only applies when you serve yourself or have some sort of control over the portions. Not in N American restos! 🙂
This is a simply fabulous post! I would love to see a weeks worth of your menus as a regular post. I actually made note of something that you did a way back during your chicken with prune and butter sauce video (Yum). You initially were going to put 4 or so potatoes in the pot and then, almost as an after thought, you decided to put one back into the bag remarking that there was just the 2 of you. This was a watershed moment for me. You did not feel the need to make more than you needed or use up that one last lonely potato. It would just be an invitation to eat more than one needs. Such a simple concept. I have always felt the need to cook WAY more than I needed to. I would cook all day on the weekend in order to stock up for the week night meals. I figured I would “go big or go home”. If the recipe served 4, I would triple it to make 12. I thought I was managing time well. I was actually just exhausting myself. I now realize that I don’t feel the need to participate in this the “make ahead” culture here in North America. Instead, I am going to try the “just in time” rhythm of your France. Your post has taught me that the answer is to cook smarter, not harder. Simple meals consisting of many courses and fresh ingredients. The added bonus is that now I can save the weekend for leisure! Thanks for showing me the way.
You are most welcome. I am thrilled you found it useful. I had forgotten about the prune-chicken-potato question. But you’re absolutely right, I continue to check myself everyday. And I’m absolutely thrilled that my children will be growing up in this eating environment. The culture just seems to provide more support for healthy ways of eating. As for cooking way too much, its definitely a cultural thing. My mom cooks for an army. In fact, I’m half waiting for her to send me an email saying how embarrassed she is by my example of her spaghetti at home. It is impossible for her to cook for less than 10. But she’s getting much better now. After coming over to France and witnessing my in-laws in practice, she has taken to using smaller plates and loves serving courses. It’s really about a mind shift and it takes time to get accustomed to it. Thank you for your kind encouragement, Valerie! Have a great weekend.
In French Women Don’t Get Fat, Mireille Guiliano says the same thing! I really should follow it, instead of just slapping food on my plate 😦
It’s not easy when you live in a fast food, eat on the go, giant portions environment. I know that for sure. I’d read all this advice in numerous books before I moved to France and was never really able to put it into use until I began living with someone who did it naturally. But it certainly can be done. One reader, Matthew Kunce, just commented that he adopted some of these ideas at home and lost over 50lbs. Amazing. I also didn’t try very hard back home to change my eating habits, so I can’t say that it didn’t work. I didn’t give it a proper try. Plus, don’t forget that the portions of packaged items in NA are much larger than in France. My husband reminded me last night that whereas a yogurt here is 125g in the States/Canada its 6 oz or 170g. Same with meat portions at the grocery store. When I’m making food at my mom’s, I often cut a steak in two even though the packaging states its for one serving.
This is so true. When we were in France last year we would often get the three course meal at the cafe. The portion size was perfect. It left you satisfied, but filled you up. We have tried to adopt some of the policy after coming home. And it has helped. I have lost over 50 lbs by just watching the portion of what I am eating and slowing down.
Wow! That’s amazing! Congratulations. That’s really something! Thanks for sharing. Take care.
Am I hungry! Best, Micheline
yes – portion size is something I continue to work on. when I have something yummy I tend to want more! when really I should want less
I’m always amazed at portion sizes in many American restaurants… it’s over the top! How could someone possibly eat that much food in one sitting? I love the idea of quality over quantity. I enjoyed your post.
Reblogged this on Not Just Sassy on the Inside.
I hope I have read this post before I went on a cruise…I just returned today…having taken lots of food ( normal…on a cruise!). And then after the cruise, I spent half a day at Seattle, and took a Russian pastry and then a French pastry…within two hours! Eating like a French….reminds me of my old art teacher who lives in Paris. He does not eat large amount of food, but drinks wine, at least one bottle a day. He is now 80 years old, and is in excellent health. I will be writing about the Okinawa studies in another post. Longevity does relate to diet and eating habits. Your husband sets a great example of healthy eating! Thanks for sharing.
I noticed (when I watched your vinaigrette video) you mentioned that the amount was sufficient to serve a family of four. (Approximately 4 T. vinaigrette total.) I’ve seen folks in the U.S. spoon that much (or more) on one salad! (Not me… I’m a “dipper.”) 🙂 The meals you’ve described above sound more than satisfying — they sound heavenly. Thanks for an interesting and accurate “second in a series” post!
Thank you, Kimby! Would love to know what you think if you get a chance to try one of the recipes out.
Wow that is amazing how you can get the same satifactioin from eating smaller portions . And still have room for dessert. Eating smaller portoins would be hard for me i love to eat alot and she said her husband dont eat snacks. I dont know if i could give up snacks that hard to do.
well my opinion is as follows, I think smaller portions are better for you. I like the
fact that i can eat dessert at a meal and it not b bad for my health. Along with a glass of wine to help wind down my day.The comfort food that she cooked is good dont get me wrong i cook that type of food as well,but i have also gotten that so full feeln that i felt like i was about to bust,because the food portion size and the type of food that i was eating.I was overweight an i had to learn how to eat smaller portion sizes. Now that i have I cannot eat a lot of food at one time. The french do not have a lot of over sized people.I Really do like eating smaller portions a couple of times a day as opposed to eating big meal.s
I could agree more! Portion size is ESSENTIAL!
Your blog about French food is splendid. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us. I like french cuisine food very much and i have tried many french recipes which i got from youtube and many other website. I like visiting French restaurants in weekend. @ dummies
Thank you so much for your kind words! I’m thrilled you found the article useful. Warm greetings from Paris.
I am so happy to find this post. My wife and I are in our mid 20s and preparing food is a concept that we struggle with. I have a culinary background and a professional culinary education, yet the question “what do we eat?” is such a hard question for me. I know how to make virtually anything. I know the techniques, but it is so difficult to figure out what and how to eat. I feel like in France those kids grow up watching their parents manage food in terms of what to cook, how to plan it, how to buy groceries. We’re just trying to figure that out and it can result in “oh i forgot to defrost this…” or something of that nature and we end up ordering out. I will treat this post and No. 3 as a template of how to eat period. Thank you.
You’re so right! I have learned all I know about food, eating, grocery shopping, serving, preparing food, etc from living here in France. (No offence Mom!) We just don’t have it in our culture in America to teach our kids this stuff by osmosis like the French do. So glad you enjoyed the article! All my best from Paris!
Wow this is really instreating. i never knew that the way that we are acustom to eatting could be this way. I do know that we always eat a bigger portion of what we are suppose to eat. Then usally when we are finished eatting there is no room for desert. After reading this im going to change the way I perpare my food and serve smaller porsion to make room for desert. I really thank you for sharing this article with everyone and hopelfully it will help people change the way they cook and help them to serve smaller porsions too, like it has done for me
Seems to me we as americans do over eat between the all you can eats and fast food places.Even home cooked meals can leave you stuffed.After reading this artical seems we have a lot to learn about portion control.Maybe ill try a little yogurt and cheese with wine.
I think that this post is so true. I have notice a lot of health cautious people belive that 5 smaller meals is more healthier oppose to 3 large meals that does not include snacks. I also notice that the French use a lot of rich ingredients oppose to americans using a lot of process ingredients.
I thought this article was very insightful. It inspires me to not only travel to Paris and try new meals there, but travel the rest of the world to do the same. Other parts of the world do so much more with their meals without being gluttonous. While I still love the different foods we have in America, I still think it’d be nice to see what other possibilities are out there.
Thank you very much for sharing your experiences through this article. As an inspiring chef and the person we prepares most of the meals for my family im very intrigued by this. As a parent your goal is to provide a better life for your kids, what better way to do that then improving there nutrition habits. Using your methods I hope that I can begin to buck the trend of over eating which has hunting my family for ages.
In my opinion Americans do eat larger portions of greasy foods such as fried chicken. Greasy foods like chicken sits on your stomach and is harder to burn off fat. French they eat very little portions of food and they also, eat yogurt and omelet .Yogurt and omelet’s helps your digestion system. So my conclusion is that French people eat healthier then Americans.
I was taught as a young child to clean my plate, and tht you never said i don’t “like” what was put before, and back as a child what was too big of a portion size? however, as an adult, i still have “just about the same habit, if i did eat as the french did, yes i probably would be alot more satisfied and slimmer, we should all practice this.
I rather like this idea very much .I sorta kinda eat this way now .Sometimes I tend to fall short of the goal . I would love to stick to the i though .The problem is I still crave late night snacks . I always thought the French ate heavier sauces and breads than us Americans ,this proved me wrong .Well, wish me luck Im gonna give it a try .Trial and error ,Trial and error ! ! 1
I have just found you and I love your website! This is exactly what I have been looking for, and I will be a daily observer.
One question…when the French eat a family meal together, are the dishes removed from the table when one course is finished or do they eat like Americans with only one plate to hold all the food? I know that in French restaurants there are salad and bread plates, dinner plate, dessert and cheese plates, but I wondered how the French eat with the family. Thanks!
Do you eat this same way for lunch too?
Thank you so much for this post. I am obsessed with this, and am rereading it over and over, trying to strain as much information as possible out of it. I even recognize the coding language you used, HTML, entirely off topic but an interesting observation for me. I will forever use the information you have gathered from your first-hand experience and will definitely read the rest of your posts!
thanks for so good experience, I live in USA almost 5 year, I only eat in Chick-fil-a,fast food, Wawa, Wendy and other restaurant, at first I love all the burgers but then just tired of everything, I miss France so much !!