Daniel Fasquelle wants the world to know the dirty secret in the kitchens of many French restaurants: they dont cook their own food. The French parliamentarian is pushing a law to restrict the use of the label restaurant to establishments that prepare their food from scratch. He reckons many of Frances eateries wouldnt cut it because they reheat industrially prepared foods. If youve ever wondered why French classics such as a moelleux au chocolat or a tarte tatin tastes suspiciously the same in Paris restaurants, its probably because it is. About a third of French restaurants say they use industrial food, and Fasquelle and other officials fear declining standards at the nations 150,000 restaurants threaten a tourism industry that represents 7 percent of Frances $2.8 trillion economy. The odds are sadly good youll be eating a pre-prepared dish or two if you dine out at the low to mid-level of the Paris food chain, said Alexander Lobrano, author of Hungry for Paris and former European Editor of Gourmet. I fervently hope that a law with real teeth will be passed in France, since it would not only go a long way to preserving the countrys distinguished gastronomic reputation but also reward those chefs who work so hard to prepare real freshly cooked food from quality ingredients. Fasquelle says his model is a 1998 law limiting use of the word boulangerie to bakeries that make their own dough, which has been credited with an improvement in French bread. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...restaurants-out-as-law-seeks-food-origin.html the crusade against local fast food?
