The move by the french is retarded. French food isn't all that great to start with, plus cooking is an organic process that changes as time goes by. Only a Frenchman would think setting it in stone was a smart thing to do.

Chinese, Japanese and Jamaican cusine are far superior anyway.

i remember at the time when there was the british beef scare it had been reported that many french farmers were feeding their animals on total shite. literally! they found some french farmers were feeding their animals their own faeces! (not the farmers') also things like cigarette butts were being given as food!

As soon as I read this, all I could think of was this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4649007.stm

What goes around comes around Jacques Shit-rag.

How a nation that serves homeless molluscs, amphibian limbs and grand national runners-up could criticize is beyond me anyway - and now it transpires Le Cuisine Magnifique c'est le cuisine merde.

Bon appetit! More like Bon chance!

Miss Hilton, cos it's risky eating out in Paris now...

Rare roast Beef, Yorshire pudding, Roast potatoes, Horse radish sauce and roast veg. Is there a finer meal in the world? I think not.

The French can keep their garlic snails and force-fed goose liver spread. I'd put Spanish and Italian cooking (not just pasta/pizza) as far superior, and if they don't like it they can shove a good of British Banger où le soleil ne brille pas!

"And, let's face it, the discomfort many Brits feel after their Saturday night chicken tikka massala or halftime pie is nothing to do with the mythical dodgy pint."

No, obviously not. The previous 8 or 9 perfectly good ones might have something to do with it though.

***"moody sunflower oil from the Ukraine"***

Is the Ukraine the only source of 'moody' oil? And can you get angry, sad, happy and depressed sunflower oil as well?

.... but I have a photo of the rear exit doors of a restaurant in Montpellier bearing the legend:

SORTIE CUISINE: PRIERE DE NE PAS URINER

Obviously noone could question the hygiene of the Paris Hilton, though.

French food and wine is so over rated - I am driving through France as fast as I can when I visit Holand soon, so I dont have to stop anywhere for food. As for their toilets....

Thai cuisine is by far the best in terms of variety of taste & spiciness.

Although, where the IT angle is... Ah! I've got it! The IT angle is that you can order all the ingredients online using your PC, to make your own Thai food!

it's also a matter of drastic hygien rules !

i've never been sick eating stuff here, in france,

and i do like a pizza or kebab some times.

Ok, so did they take their field spectrometer kit to all 9200 culinary purveyors and check their sunflower oil for contaminating mineral oil? No, I didn't think so.

Don't just start lying about causes, mr.

I remember the famous Fouquet's being closed a few years back for egregious crimes against gastronomy. And in Avignon I met a bunch of workers from reputed establishments that refused to eat the free food they were offered as they knew better.

Up yours, you shit eating, cheating, surrender monkeys!

Can't we just bomb them? It must be our turn, surely..

Let's face it, if you go to France and eat in a fast-food restaurant, you deserve all you get.

For €10-15 (including wine) you can eat better in a French Relais Routier, than almost anywhere else in the western world for the price.

Liam, the Daily Mail isn't always very accurate! How come we got BSE, Foot and Mouth, Swine fever, etc., and France only got it when they imported British beasts?

Pot, Kettle, etc. BSE was caused by feeding (British) cows, cow - following US practice, (But they slaughter their cows before the symptoms show. Tick, tick, tick... maybe that explains GW's policies.)

@AC - daft, some sort of joke I assume. Have you ever been to France? (or China, Jamaica or Japan for that matter) I've been to 3 of the 4, and all have good food, but it is always French food I go back to.

Didn't the French set up strict rules about how and where wine should be produced in order to be called certain things? And have subsequently been bitten by those rules and had to change a few to stay in business?

The kitchen grew dirtier and the rats bolder, though we trapped a few of them. Looking round that filthy room, with raw meat lying among refuse on the floor, and cold, clotted saucepans sprawling everywhere, and the sink blocked and coated with grease, I used to wonder whether there could be a restaurant in the world as bad as ours. But the other three all said that they had been in dirtier places. Jules took a positive pleasure in seeings things dirty. In the afternoon, when he had not much to do, he used to stand in the kitchen doorway jeering at us for working too hard:

‘Fool! Why do you wash that plate? Wipe it on your trousers. Who cares about the customers? THEY don’t know what’s going on. What is restaurant work? You are carving a chicken and it falls on the floor. You apologize, you bow, you go out; and in five minutes you come back by another door— with the same chicken. That is restaurant work,’ etc.

(from "Down and Out in Paris and London")

Just like most of their wine.

> a quarter of its restaurants.....serve up food unfit for human consumption.

But that's still good enough for the French to eat though....

Paris because, well think about it....

I have a good friend who travels to the South of France each year for seasonal work. I have heard many horror stories from him about the local eateries, including one fella who had a novel waste disposal unit in his restaurant's kitchen - two Alsatians, which resided within a cupboard with a hole cut into the top so he could toss the scraps to them.

What is it about being away from home that suddenly makes people think "Ah, that cook doesn't look very clean and he just sneezed on that burger AND he scratched his arse with the fork - I'll eat it anyway though!" It is their own fault, most of the time. For example, the Americans do love to moan about Brit food but then you realise from the stories they tell you that they were eating in greasy spoons and old men's pubs etc. You get what you pay for.

but when it is done well there is nothing in the world to match it.

Did Inspector Taggart do the checks???

These are "wonderful devices", but don't always work as shown in the AD. One in particular I went to (it was almost 7 years ago) was supposed to be "smoke free", but alas, the French are the French, and quite a few "lit up" at various stages of the meal. If they do that IN PUBLIC, what do you expect in the back room where the food is prepared?

Of course, in the Napa Valley, Taylor's Refresher is a wonderful place to get lunch!

Wow you're so angry about French food you managed to break your keyboard...

Don't feed the troll. He'll threaten to break TEH INTARWEB.

This isn't French food, this is foreign food being sold by immigrants to France.

Italian, no contest.

Not only do they do great food, they also make you feel like a member of the family as you eat it. That's why we love Italian restaurants.

There is NO irony intended in the "family" part of that statement. If you see it there, it says something about you...

Hmm....yeah no not again being treated like crap because I was an American kinda sucks. Hell Its not like we didnt save their country a few times.

/Paris because i certainly wouldnt want to eat her and end up with Mad Cu*t Disease

yes yes I know...This wont get posted but I tried :P

I stayed in Geneva and Paris (and the surrounding French areas) for more times that I'd like to remember, and all I could remember was that, on most occasions, the food was crap and overly-expensive. I've also seen evidence of the massive French work-ethic-that-isn't, and frankly I'm not even mildly surprised that most French cooks can't be bothered to wash their hands. Just looking at the state of their streets speaks volumes about how they value cleanliness.

Even the Germans are far, far ahead of the French. Which is scary, given the Germans don't even *have* a reputation for their culinary prowess. And they have clean streets, by the way.

what else did anyone expect from... ahem... frog and snail eaters?

yup, i'm a damn racist...

No doubt you're a proponent of Californian wine... while good for cooking, one wouldn't want to be seen comsuming it in civilised company.

"Of course, in the Napa Valley, Taylor's Refresher is a wonderful place to get lunch!"

Ahhhhh... someone who knows good American food. Came back as good as ever after the fire that destroyed the building a couple of years ago. Good thing too... the natives were suffering from withdrawal pains.

Paris, cos she might even eat there.

"No doubt you're a proponent of Californian wine... while good for cooking, one wouldn't want to be seen comsuming it in civilised company."

Don't know about "comsuming", but even the French are CONSUMING California wines... and so in love with it they're buying entire wineries in Napa Valley.

Paris, because I wouldn't mind sharing a bottle of Napa Valley Screaming Eagle wine with her.

Ah, the Templars. They transferred their lineage to the order of St John, more fully "Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta" and are still about, and recognised by the UN as well. The smallest sovreignity in the world (6000 square meters) they have diplomatic relations with many countries, observer status at the UN and EU, and can issue passports like the UN and the Red Cross can.

All this Daily Mail-esque jingoism is terribly amusing. Hard to believe that, despite most of the ill-informed comments thus far received, France remains one of the most popular destinations for holidays and indeed relocation. Strangely, you don't seem to get that many French people selling up to come and live in Bognor.

"yup, i'm a damn racist..."

Nope, you're a xenophobe.

So this American guy was visiting Paris, and was lost. He walked up to a French guy and asked, very politely, where the louvre was.

"I don't speak English!" The Frenchman spat at him viciously.

Taken aback, the American repeated the question in French.

"I said I don't speak English!!!" the Frenchman yelled.

"Paris, because I wouldn't mind sharing a bottle of Napa Valley Screaming Eagle wine with her."

Ahh yes, and after less than a bottle of wine I'm sure she'd be sharing her spreadeagle with you!

1 - Go to butchers, buy meat.

2 - Serve with arrogant tone.