What We Eat in a Day: American Expats in France
France is famous for its cuisine, and one of the first things that people want to know about us as American expats is whether we prefer eating American or French food. The answer is complicated, because as much as we like coquilles Saint-Jacques and crêpes, we can’t help but also crave mac and cheese and apple pie.
Our budget influences the kinds of meals we eat here, especially considering that we moved to France as English teaching assistants with low salaries and are currently thrifty master’s degree students. Thus, we shop for cheap ingredients that we can cook up in our small, oven-free apartment.
Another limiting factor is my choice to be a pescatarian. For me, this means that, for around five years now, I’ve been eating a vegetarian diet with fish on occasion. Because Jalen doesn’t have any dietary restrictions, many of our meals are one-dish-two-ways recipes that feed both vegetarians and meat-eaters.
Bearing in mind our Franco-American palettes, modest budget, and meat preferences, we invite you to spend une journée dans nos assiettes and experience what we eat as young Americans living in France.
To begin the day, we enjoyed croissants with cappuccinos from our local bakery. On quiet Saturday mornings like this one, we love parking ourselves in front of a beautiful view during breakfast. This time, we chose to admire the Basilique Saint-Remi. The buttery, flaky texture of our pastries paired so well with every hot sip of coffee!
At around one o’clock in the afternoon, we made whole wheat wraps at home for lunch. Since we grocery shop on Saturdays, we had plenty of fresh ingredients. My wrap included lettuce, cherry tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, and veggie nuggets with a bit of moutarde de Reims. Jalen’s had sliced turkey, bacon, lettuce, and tomato. We had lightly-salted potato chips, mandarin oranges, and speculoos cookies on the side.
For dinner, we ate none other than one of the most hotly debated meals in France – French tacos! You either love them, or you hate them, and we are firmly on team tacos! All tacos begin with a tortilla, French fries, and cheese sauce, allowing the consumer to customize their order from there. Mine featured falafel and sauce algérienne while Jalen went for kebab and sauce blanche. We decided to spend our Saturday evening outdoors, so we set up a picnic at the Promenades Jean-Louis Schneiter.
Eating delicious food is such a simple pleasure, and we loved giving you a peek into the sorts of meals we enjoy on a given day as Americans abroad. How do our eating habits differ from yours? Let us know in a comment!
2 Comments
Jem
Those French “tacos” are blowing my mind right now!
Jalen & Maria
They are so tasty!