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Comment by iancmceachern | Hacker News Reader

I'm American and have traveled to France quite a bit and 100% would never say anything other than their food is way better.

If you cooked your favorite dish, your way, with French ingredients it would be better.

It's not just the cuisine itself, it's the quality of the ingredients and the care that goes into the ingredients themselves.

I live in San Francisco, Northern California has some of the best food in the US because there is a diverse group of people here with equally diverse and delicious food traditions, and access to very high quality ingredients.

All that to say, French food and ingredients are still better.

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> If you cooked your favorite dish, your way, with French ingredients it would be better.

My favorite dish is fresh, wild-caught Alaska salmon. I'm not sure how one would cook that with French ingredients.

Presumably with European butter, garlic and rosemary - all of which is readily available in all 6 of the grocery stores within walking distance of my apartment in LA.

It's the fresh ingredients that make the difference my friend.

The fish, the veggies, the fresh garlic, whatever. That's what you are eating. You are not eating all the crap you put on it.

That's the point I'm trying to make. In America it's all about whatever nonsense we put on the dish. In France and much of Europe it's about the quality of the ingredients of the dish themselves, with minimal other stuff. Some olive oil, some butter. Here it's like the most complicated sauces slathered all over sub par main ingredients.

I'd much rather have some high quality (yet not expensive) pasta simply cooked with some olive oil and a bit of real parmesean cheese than a complicated sauce on low quality pasta.

Yes I’m sure in France they eat their fresh caught Alaskan Salmon plain with zero accouterments. (?!!)

French cooks would add fresh European style butter and fresh local garlic - both of which I can get at the farmers market. In France they’d use ail fumé d'Arleux - in California we’d use white Gilroy Garlic. Gilroy is 3 hours away, and the garlic comes straight here. Alaska is closer to California than to France, and we have cows here too.

My whole point is “how do you make wild salmon better: add some fresh ingredients”. The same they do in France. I’m not a fan of the dill seeds French fish plates usually have, tho I do add a little.

What are you talking about? French cuisine has plenty of sauces, and virtually no one eats cooked salmon with absolutely nothing else. French cuisine is pretty much at the bottom of the list of “not complicated” and “no toppings”, and good for them - plain food is not simply better. At LEAST a bit of lemon for goodness sake!

I have eaten simply cooked salmon in France many times, no sauce.

Its not that.

It's that the average French person has a more refined and demanding pallette than the average American.

The factory trawler caught frozen fish we purchase in huge quantities at Walmart and Costco is simply terrible compared to what you would find in the average French grocery store.

It's not like all the salmon in the world is the same. Go to a poisspnerie in France, you will find out what I'm talking about.

We're talking past each other. I'm sure I can't argue about the average french person and the average american person and I'm sure I don't want to. I was responding to "how can you make salmon better with french ingredients".

Why would you put butter on salmon? Maybe on that farmed stuff? Wild fish have plenty of oil in them already.

I don't put anything on it but salt and pepper. Maybe some lemon wedges on the side.

Just enough butter so you can melt the herbs de province and garlic into the butter and brush it evenly over the entire fish. Then a bit of salt and lemon and sprig of rosemary, bake in foil at 375. As you said, with salmon less is more. The butter isn’t so much for taste as for perfecting the outer appearance and ensuring the garlic and herbs are evenly distributed. Experiment with dill seeds!

Also - we’re talking about how French cuisine is better and you’re rejecting butter? The conversation can end there: French cuisine is better because they use butter! A tip: every bit of salmon you’ve ever had at a restaurant was cooked with butter. Try it!

farmed salmon is alot fattier than wild caught

The French also have Saumon à l'oseille, although I don't know where they get the salmon from, maybe Norway. But they have Maquereaux au vin blanc made with locally caught fish.

Perfect example. Mine too!

Trust me, go to Paris, or anywhere in France really, get some salmon from a local poissanerie, buy some local fresh veggies and make it how you normally do.

It will be amazing

> It will be amazing

No, it won't. It will be Atlantic salmon, probably farm-raised, and it will suck.

(France is closer to Scotland than Arizona)

Also, as in Japan, the expectation of quality and the buyers for the suppliers have vastly different definitions of quality.

As with anywhere, you can easily choose to buy farmed or wild, whatever you want.

The higher level point I'm trying to make is that you can't go to Costco in France and get that cheap Chinese factory trawler caught fish like most Americans buy frozen from Walmart or Costco.

What the average American callas acceptable fish would not he what the average French person calls accepable.

America is a big place.

I'm pretty sure that the seafood I get here in coastal Alaska averages higher quality than anything you'll ever see in Paris.

Yeah, geographically big, but it's population centers are not equally spread out.

For example, Alaska. 0.2% of the US population lives in Alaska, and a small percentage of those live in the coastal regions.

The average American lives in LA, New York, Atlanta or Texas, etc. Not rural alaska.

Specificity aside, the fish available at markets across France makes the fish counter at a typical American supermarket look quite unappetizing.

the seafood we get here is terrible outside of a few exceptions. And it takes work to get those. Which makes no sense with how much coastline there is. I dont think american like seafood.

What’s your second favourite dish then that isn’t a single regional ingredient?

Salmon Meuniere w/ French butter.

Some American food is French food. Creole food is amazing.

Creole food is amazing, and is French inspired, but I think it would upset some folks to straight up call it French.

Yeah... I'm sorry Louisiana

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