Winter French Dishes That Will Stick to Your Ribs

Oct 20 at 3:53 AM

Winter French Dishes That Will Stick to Your Ribs

In some countries, the best season for eating is the heart of summer, when tomatoes and zucchini pop up in abundance. For other countries, it's fall - the time of harvest and the time when all the best new wines come out. For France, however, I think that the best food season is the winter. So much of French cuisine is heavy, soup-oriented and cheese-filled - it's just what you need to warm you up on a cold day and keep you toasty!

Pure Melted Cheese

Raclette is the ultimate French winter dish: melted cheese, sometimes with ham or other meat, spooned over potatoes or even eaten on its own. Tartiflette is a variation on raclette with onions, lardons, and sometimes smoked salmon. You'll see street vendors all over France stirring giant skillets of raclette. My recommendation? Enjoy it with a cup of hot wine - and make sure to take a long walk afterward to work it off! Another similar option is andouillette, a lyonnais specialty. Melted cheese, mustard, and a variety of strange meats and offal, including pig stomach and veal neck, are cooked together in a skillet. The mixture is then spread on tiny rounds of crispy bread.

The Soups

Say whatever you want about the French - they know how to make a satisfying soup.French onion soup is the most famous, and this version at Cafe le Conti in Paris took it to the next level. Just look at the size of it - and how thick that cheese is!The perfect companion to butternut squash soup? Three slices of cured ham. I loved this dish at the chic Do Mo in Lyon. And if you're not going to have soup, why not go for escargots for your starter instead? I love when the escargots come out of the oven hot and sizzling, still in their shells. After deftly maneuvering to remove them from their shells, sit back and soak up the fantastically garlicky sauce with your bread. These escargots were part of a three-course meal at Le Paname in Montmartre in Paris - a delicious cheap find in an expensive neighborhood.

And Now for Something Different…

Why not get a big bowl of pho? Paris has a big Southeast Asian population, and Vietnamese restaurants abound. I tried the tiny restaurant outside the Crimée stop in Paris's 19th arrondissement. I found a big bowl of pho to be the perfect antidote to days and days of heavy food - and infinitely more French when paired with an Orangina.