Microsoft PowerPoint - CLASSIC FRENCH CUISINE GENERAL KNOWLE

Historical Factor in Formation and Development of French Cuisine

• Food played a large role in the French Revolution • Two of the most essential elements of French cuisine, bread and salt, were at the heart of the conflict • Bread, in particular, is tied national identity • "Bread was considered a public service necessary to keep the people from rioting," Civitello writes. • "Bakers, therefore, were public servants, so the police controlled all aspects of bread production." • Main component of working Frenchman's diet • Average 18th-century worker spent 50% his daily wage on bread • When grain crops failed two years in a row, 1788 and 1789, price of bread increased to 88 percent of wages. • Many blamed ruling class for the famine and economic upheaval. • Peasants also resented the gabelle; a tax on salt that was particularly unfairly applied to the poor.