Emily in France 🇫🇷 What a Culinary Journalist Really Eats

It's not all pretty

I'd hazard a guess that those of you who meet me on food tours or via my culinary journalism would be surprised to learn how I eat when I’m not on the clock.

When I’m eating for work, I get the chance to sample a wide range of dishes from some of Paris’ top restaurant chefs. I meet with producers of top cheeses, beers, and viennoiseries – and generally, I take it upon myself to sample their wares. (It seems only polite!)

But when left to my own devices, I’m a bit more… structured in my approach. (Some would say formulaic.) I’ll admit I rely on the same old standards again and again and again. I suppose I take comfort in the familiar – and I suppose, too, that taking the guesswork out of my meals is one small way of balancing the fact that most of my day is already spent thinking about, researching, planning for, and eating food.

So with that in mind… here’s what I typically eat in a day.

Until very recently, I ran on coffee to the tune of about a pot per diem, drunk throughout the morning. But recently, I went off caffeine, for the most part, and these days, my morning begins with a small matcha, followed a few hours later with a breakfast bowl of miso soup.

That takes me through to lunch, perhaps my favorite meal of the day. (I even have a song to that effect.) My typical lunch has been dubbed “the trough” by my nearest and dearest: a large bowl filled with whatever delicious scraps are hanging around in the fridge, usually liberally doused in a tahini-lime dressing.

The trough scratches a number of itches, including my desire to mainline large quantities of vegetables, especially when not eating for work. It also vibes well with my working pattern, which usually sees me trying to get as much as possible done in the morning, when my brain is at its freshest. This invariably leads to my finally looking up at some point after noon and realizing that I’m ravenous. Seeing as the trough can be thrown together in ten minutes or less, it’s my saving grace to ward against hanger.

If I’m out and about when the lunchtime hour rolls around, I typically head to the closest supermarket and grab a carottes râpées salad, Shaki Shaki-brand onigiri (the tuna-avocado one), and whatever seasonal fruit I can find for a makeshift picnic. Right now, I’m head-over-heels for black Muscat grapes, though apple season is just around the corner.

Dinner typically more closely resembles what other human beings might consider a meal, and often of the Asian variety: sesame noodles, Thai curry, and bibimbap are all staples. These meals are typically driven by the seasonal produce I find at purveyors along my high street or at my local covered market, occasionally featuring pastured eggs or sustainably-caught fish. That said, if I’m on my own, the cooking usually goes no further than roasting a tray of seasonal vegetables and supplementing them with tahini sauce, avocado, beans, or an egg and a liberal dose of hot sauce.

When the boxful of cheese scraps that’s a permanent fixture of our tiny fridge grows too unwieldy, we typically lay it all out on the table and have cheese for dinner. (Accompanied, bien sûr, by salads, fresh bread, and pourquoi pas a glass of wine.)

As for when I’m on the road… that’s where things go a little feral.

I have a tendency to forget to eat when I’m reporting, so that by the time I make it back to my hotel, I’m forced to make a meal out of whatever products I’ve scrounged, whether it’s a roll pilfered from the breakfast bar, an apple I threw in my purse at the last minute, or a speculoos cookie I pocketed during an afternoon coffee break. At my worst, I once ended up eating beans straight out of the jar with a pen, seeing as there was no cutlery to be found in my rental. At my best, I simply spread out cheese and charcuterie sourced from the producers I've been interviewing, pull out my Opinel, and dig in.

Oddly, these are some of my favorite meals of all.

Cheese of the Week

I always find it hard to pick a favorite cheese, but currenly, Manigodine holds that title. Think of this cheese like a Reblochon on steroids: a creamy, custardy confection made with the milk of Abondance, Montbéliarde, and Tarine cows, lightly washed and aged to perfection by the team at Joseph Paccard. The cheese is wrapped in a strip of spruce bark, which basically serves as a corset holding the creamy cheese together. It gives it all of its woodsy, smoky, floral flavors… and also allows it to be aged for a whopping two months. That slight woodsiness, compounded with the extra-rich milk of the autumnal regain, makes it even more moreish in fall.

To discover more of my favorite cheeses, be sure to follow me on Instagram @emily_in_france, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and tune into the Terroir Podcast, where Caroline Conner and I delve into France's cheese, wine, and more one region at a time.

What I’m Eating

I’m far from the first person to be wooed by the time warp that is le Quincy. This little restaurant looks like the country inn it purports to be on its signage, plopped just a few steps from Gare de Lyon. And while Bobosse, the long-time proprietor, is no longer swanning around the room, the ambiance is just as old-school as ever. (And is reflected in the cash-only policy!) More on the blog.

Where I’m Going

1. To A.Lea, a Montmartrois restaurant that looks like it's going to be a winner.

2. To the Loire Valley, to discover, among other delicacies, two of the region's five AOC goat cheeses.

3. To the Loire Valley's Cave Champignonnière, a mushroom cellar growing 40% of the world's blue foot mushrooms in the cavernous catacombs where the limestone to build the region's exquisite chateaux was sourced.

What I'm Writing

1. Chef Hélène Darroze needs no introduction for French foodies: A juror on French Top Chef for nearly a decade, Darroze boasts six Michelin stars across three of her five restaurants in Paris and London, and was admitted into the French Legion of Honor in 2012. She even served as the inspiration for Colette in Disney’s Ratatouille – albeit one look at the smiling, flaxen-haired chef makes it clear she was emulated far more for her culinary talent than for any short-temperedness. I asked her where she and her daughters like to eat when she's not on the clock, for Bonjour Paris.

2. Not writing… but I joined the team at Bonjour Paris Live to help put French cheeses on the map – literally. From the soft and creamy varieties of Normandy to the distinct goat cheeses of the Loire Valley, this video guide to the regionality of French cheeses is available online.

3. From the archives: Root vegetables like rutabaga and turnip were deemed “lost” after overconsumption during World War II. But with the locavore movement, they’ve finally returned to French tables. For Atlas Obscura.

FAQs

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What I'm Reading

1. Les Faux-Monnayeurs has been on my shelf for over a decade, purchased on a whim after my professor in a 20th-century literature class referenced it. After finally reading it, I'll admit that I don't remember exactly why I was so excited about it, though I suspect it might have been the gems of lines littered throughout, including this one: "Je me défie des sentiments qui trouvent leur expression trop vite." – I'm wary of feelings that find their names too quickly. Ultimately, the story of les Faux-Monnayeurs is a bit wending, a story within a story, where characters are examined deeply and then forgotten. But I liked the experience of reading it, which reminded me a bit of Balzac: a sort of slice of life rather than a strict narrative arc.

2. This argument in favor of thinking out of the box when consuming seafood, specifically in the UK, where despite an abundance of sustainable, local fish, most seafood is imported. In the Guardian.

3. This story about a Swedish cheese whose flavor changes so significantly when made anywhere but one town that some believe the taste is due to an ancient meteorite that changed the makeup of the local soil. In the BBC.

A bientôt !