Eight Insights from My French Kitchens

And what French kitchens can teach you about your own home cooking.

I’ve spent major chunks of over 25 summers renting vacation apartments in France. Over the years, I’ve noticed commonalities in the batterie de cuisine of just about every apartment I’ve stayed in from Paris to Normandy to the Mediterranean.

The French kitchens of apartments we’ve stayed in, including this one in Normandy, are tiny but thoughtfully stocked.

In addition to the pots, pans, knives, and other very basic cooking utensils that every cook in the Western world would need, every kitchen had the items below. Each tells you a little something about French cuisine and offers insights into how to bring a little French cooking savvy to your own table.

1. A Woven Basket

Every French apartment I’ve ever stayed at is equipped with a woven “panier” or marketing basket. I bought this one in St.-Remy-de-Provence.

A well-worn but sturdy panier (shopping basket), generally made of woven natural fibers, is stashed somewhere in every kitchen. For sure, this attests to the country’s eco-consciousness (these days, grocery stores charge for plastic bags).

Yet the size of the panier—generally not that large—tells us how often the French shop, which in turn indicates how fresh the food they eat generally is: You make your daily market rounds, pick up a small panier-full of whatever looks its freshest best, and head home. The next day, you get up and do the same.

2. Tiny Refrigerators

For the first week or so after I arrive in France, my eyes are always bigger than my refrigerator! This tiny fridge in Collioure couldn’t hold all my market, deli, and cheese shop items!

As further testament to the freshness of the food, no French kitchen I’ve ever cooked in has a full, American-size refrigerator. Sure, you could argue that, since I’m staying in vacation rentals, one wouldn’t expect to store much food. Still, my French friends also have small refrigerators—not as small as in my vacation rentals, but still much smaller than what I have in the U.S.

3. Une Cocotte

Every apartment comes equipped with a heavy pan with a heavy tight-fitting lid, often made by Le Creuset, Staub, or other well-known French manufacturers. Americans call these pans “Dutch ovens,” though the French, of course, do no such thing (in France they’re called cocottes).

These pots speak to how much the French love their braised dishes—and to a certain economy-mindedness of French cooks, who are masterful at turning inexpensive cuts of meat into something marvelous, like coq au vin and boeuf bourguignon, par exemple.

Incidentally, I generally prefer a braiser over a Dutch oven. Here’s why.

4. A Great Breadknife

Check out the bread-knife, far left. It was the highest-quality one in the lineup, by far.

It’s happened more than once: I’ve noticed that the cooking knives at my vacation studio are often inferior—they’ll get the job done, but they are nothing like Wüsthof set I have back at home.

In fact, in my French kitchens, I’ve found that there’s often only one high-quality knife amidst the cheapies: the breadknife, which is generally the best knife in the kitchen. No surprise there: for the French, the daily bread (often brought home in that panier) is especially sacred.

5. A Food Mill

No matter how small the kitchen, valuable space is often given to one of these things.

A hand-cranked cross between a sieve and a blender, a food mill is often the French cook’s preferred way of pureeing soups and root vegetables. It’s one of the secrets to creamy and luscious pureed potatoes (well, that and loads of butter!). The fact that nearly every kitchen I’ve cooked in—no matter how small—possesses one of these awkward, ungainly, space-robbing things attests to just how beloved these behemoths are.

BTW: I don’t even bother with one of these in my own home (I prefer a food press or a blender).

Recipe of the Week: Potage Purée de Legumes/Pureed Vegetable Soup, the ultimate French autumn soup. Yes—you could use a food mill for this, but you don’t have to.

6. Dozens of Plates and an Abundance of Cutlery

The silverware drawer is always chock full. Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash

Even when I stay in a studio apartment designed for just two, the cupboard shelves and drawers groan under the weight of more cutlery and plates than you’d think necessary. But when you think about how the French love to eat in courses—a sit-down starter, a main dish, a cheese course, and dessert—all those plates start to make sense. I generally end up using them all for even the most casual meals. Fortunately, more and more apartments are coming equipped with dishwashers.

7. No Baking Supplies Whatsoever

Why would anyone but a hobbyist bother baking dessert when supermarket shelves brim with beautiful readymade choices? Not to mention artisanal pastry shops, which are so much better, of course.

I’ve never seen a tart pan, cake pan, baking sheet, or measuring scales in any apartment I’ve rented. Of course, only hard-core cooks would bother baking desserts on vacation. But the truth is, with pastry shops around nearly every corner, the French simply don’t need to bake at home as often as we do.

And while pastry shops are best, I’m often bowled over by the headspinningly high quality of the packaged desserts at the supermarket.

8. Multiple Corkscrews

The last apartment I stayed in had these three corkscrews in the drawer.

I’ve rarely stayed in an apartment that had just one corkscrew in the drawer. Usually there are two or more (the last apartment I stayed in had three). (My favorite style of corkscrew, by the way, is the simple Waiter’s Corkscrew, pictured to the left above.)

After all, what if one got broken or misplaced? When it comes to wine, the French leave nothing to chance.

My Food Memoir is Now Available

“Love Is My Favorite Flavor” was published by the University of Iowa Press in July. In it, I write about the pleasures and pitfalls of being a food and wine writer and restaurant critic for the past 25 years. Chapters also cover traveling in France for 25 summers informed my work and my life.