Navigating the Colonial French Business Meal by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
Savvy business people know that understanding the etiquette that surrounds a business meal can foster relationships that are crucial for doing business in foreign countries. The success of your product or service may have its beginnings in the impression you make at the dinner table.
Nowhere is this truer than in France. The well-thought out contrast of cold versus hot dishes, textures, seasonings, difficulty of preparation, and choice of wines to go with dishes make ordering a French meal a pleasurable intellectual exercise. How well you can put this savoir faire into practice can contribute to the impression that your French counterparts retain of you.
The French meal begins with the very agreeable custom of drinking an apéritif. This is usually a sweet wine or another alcoholic beverage, which should stimulate the appetite. One of the most popular apéritifs is kir. It is made with white wine and blackcurrant liqueur (crème de cassis). Even more popular is kir royal, which is made with champagne.
Plain champagne will always be welcome as an apéritif as well. Those diners seeking the flair of Provence should try anise-flavored pastis. Drinking whiskey is an accepted British habit. The apéritif, always taken in moderation, should serve as a gastric warm up.
In the past, the French preceded the entrée with an hors d’oeuvre, but nowadays business meals are being scaled down. The appetite-opening entrée begins the meal. The French are confused by the American use of entrée to describe the main dish in American fare.
In France, the entrée can be almost any kind of food depending on what you plan to eat after it.
Ham from Bayonne served with fresh figs or cantaloupe is a popular entrée during summer months as well as vegetable terrines. Shellfish show up frequently during the winter months with raw oysters, called fresh oysters in France, being the premier dish.
Other favorites are baked scallops on the half shell and boiled langoustines, a soft-shelled crayfish. Foie gras in aspic is an especially luxurious entrée. Any entrée should just ever so slightly satisfy your appetite on the way to the main dish called the “plat principal.”
Meat or fish is the usual main dish, but the cooking techniques are often what set French cuisine apart from the cooking in the United States, for example. Poached fish whets the appetite for a dry white wine.
Chicken simmered in wine literally falls off the bones in the dish called Coq au Vin (Chicken in Wine Sauce). Roasted meats, especially lamb shanks, remain a favorite, because meat accompanies red wine so well.
The French are by no means finished eating after the main course. A simple green salad with vinegar and oil dressing sometimes follows the main course. The French never drink wine with salad as the vinegar clashes with the wine. If you want to avoid appearing uncouth, you should do the same. Many restaurants proceed directly to the cheese course.
The arrival of the cheese platter signals that serious business discussion can begin. It may even merit opening another bottle of wine. In a restaurant, you can point at two or three cheese offerings on the cheese platter if you do not know the names.
However, it is better to ask the waiter what the names of the cheese are and then select a few. The waiter will give you your cheese selections.
You may never have to do it, but it is good to know the correct way to cut the cheese in France:
Round cheese in wedges
Log shaped cheese in rounds
Square cheese in little squares
Flat-topped pyramid cheese in squares
Wedges in slimmer wedges
Knowing these fine points could earn you some brownie points with your dinner guests on the way to dessert.
Many French people drink a sweet wine or semi-sweet Champagne with their dessert. This holds true for all desserts except for those containing chocolate, which taints the taste of wine. Luscious desserts served in dainty portions explain how the French stay so slim.
The meal usually ends with a cup of espresso. The French never drink coffee with their meals. Strong, bitter espresso bears no relation to the mild American beverage. Preferred after-dinner drinks are cognac and armagnac. Some restaurants even offer their patrons a cigar.
A final word should be said about dinner conversation. French businesspeople have elegant, old-fashioned manners. They will not aggressively seek out personal information.
Instead they will let you slowly reveal your personality through your discussion of current events, interests, and French culture. The French are justly proud of their heritage and they will appreciate knowledgeable references to it during dinner.
Cigars can be smoked at the end of the meal, usually by men.
Bon appétit!
By Ruth Paget, Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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