The modern charcuterie board may be beautiful, but it isn't particularly French.

This week, Caroline and Emily unpack the world of French charcuterie, from saucisson and jambon to pâté, rillettes, and pâté croûte. They explain why cheese and charcuterie were traditionally served separately, how regional pork traditions shaped French cuisine, and why the Instagram charcuterie board would surprise many French diners.

Podcast Show Notes

• Why French people object to the term "charcuterie board"
• What charcuterie actually means
• France's major charcuterie traditions
• Jambon blanc, saucisson, and dry-cured ham
• The Three F's of identifying quality saucisson
• How French food culture values specialists and sourcing
• AOP, AOC, and IGP protections
• Basque, Auvergne, and Corsican charcuterie
• Why Americans are uncomfortable with pâté
• The history of pâté croûte
• Pâté vs terrine vs rillette
• Why cheese traditionally comes after the meal
• How wine bars helped create the modern cheese-and-charcuterie board
• The rise of the apéro dînatoire

Key Takeaways

• Traditional French charcuterie is much broader than cured meats alone.
• Cheese and charcuterie were historically served at different points in the meal.
• The modern mixed charcuterie-and-cheese board is relatively recent.
• Regional identity is central to French charcuterie culture.
• Pâté, terrine, rillette, and pâté croûte are distinct products.
• French food culture emphasizes sourcing and curation as much as cooking.

• • • • • • • • • •

Fishwives of Paris is the podcast that dives into the surprising stories, myths, and realities behind French food, wine, and culture. Hosted by Emily Monaco and Caroline Fazeli.

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Bonjour, Emilie.

Bonjour, Caroline.

We are the Real Fish Waves of Paris; we debunk myths about French food and wine.

And I'm really angry today.

Oh, you're really angry today? I love that on you.

I'm really pissed.

I love that.

Because I feel like I keep getting lost on Instagram reels, which is my own problem. But people keep calling things "charcuterie boards" that have nothing to do with charcuterie.

That is real. And it is annoying, because the American charcuterie board actually bears little to no resemblance to what you would actually receive here in France: the home of charcuterie.

For— for in two different ways, right? So first of all, American charcuterie boards: not saying they're not beautiful. They're gorgeous. They're maximalist. They're huge. Every inch of space on the board is covered with something.

I love an American maximalist charcuterie board. I think they are so beautiful, and honestly, that's how I roll. I fill up my boards. I think that is what makes a charcuterie board beautiful.

And you do a beautiful job. And I'm very happy to be invited into your home to partake in a board, but it's probably not— well, in your house, I'm not sure. But I think a lot of the ones that I see online are not charcuterie boards.

No.

There's all kinds of other stuff on them.

Well, I like that— well, I guess, let's break down what an American charcuterie board would probably have on it. It would have some meat. It would have some cheese. It would have some maybe olives and nuts.

Some spreads.

Fruit dips.

Crudités.

Crudités, yes, like chopped vegetables. You would find none of that on a French board, except for meat and cheese, but they're often not served together.

Right. So I think to break this down, first of all, we have to talk about what the hell is charcuterie. So charcuterie is a big category of meat products that— I mean, etymologically speaking, I— so I was a linguistics major in university. So I—

Of course you were.

So I like to use the word "etymologically" speaking a lot, and then people slap me. That's fine. Etymologically speaking.

No violence here.

No violence. Etymologically speaking, charcuterie comes from "chair," which means flesh.

Ooh.

Meat. And "cuit," which is cooked. So we're talking about cooked or cured meat products.

Yes, charcuterie is pork-driven, I would say. There obviously are products that are not based around pork, but most of it is pork.

Yeah. And as a country that eats a lot of pork, we're eating about 34 kilos of pork per person in France on average.

Ah.

Every year?

I can't believe it. We— we eat a lot of charcuterie. It's— it's something that here in Lyon, we definitely eat a lot of, that's for sure.

Yeah. So when we're in the realm of charcuterie, we can kind of divide things into two major categories that you're going to see proliferating in different parts of, you know, Europe, by and large. So in drier climates, so in the Mediterranean, you're going to see dry-cured specialties: sausage, ham. A lot of the ones we know best come from Italy. So like salami, prosciutto.

Yeah.

These are all dry-cured meats. And then in, like, more wet, like northern areas, you're going to see a lot of, like, potted meats. So like pâtés, terrines.

Interesting.

Riette.

Especially in Lyon, where we really, I think, are very good at it. Lyon has a lot of specialty charcuterie and is a pig-heavy place within France. I mean, I remember— I don't remember who categorized France in fats.

Oh, I love that.

You know? But like the south is olive oil, right? Southwest. Southeast is olive oil. The southwest is duck fat. The north is butter. And we are pork here. We are in pork territory. And we don't cook with lard anymore. Maybe that was something that was happening in the past. We eat a lot of charcuterie, and a lot of the, like, traditional Lyonnais dishes are actually based around offal.

Yeah. And I mean, I think that this is— this is a city that knows how to make good on the French expression, which is "tout est bon dans le cochon." Everything in the pig is good.

Yeah, they love.

Knows to tail dining.

They love tripe in Lyon.

Yeah.

Andouillette.

Yeah.

We're going to get to that, aren't we?

We are going to get to that. Well, let's talk about the less divisive specialties first, because there are some really major charcuterie specialties in France. The most popular in France is jambon blanc.

Jambon blanc. That's just ham.

Yeah. Like, it's literally white ham.

White.

It's like a cooked ham.

Yeah, cooked ham, sliced. We move through a lot of that. That is something we always have in our fridge. It's just a little ham snack. You roll that thing up like a tortilla, shove it in your mouth.

Yeah.

On the go, we're good.

Yeah. And that's something that some French people will call "jambon de Paris."

Oui.

Because the recipe was invented in Paris around the market area of L'Aille, the place that Émile Zola called the "belly of Paris."

Belly of Paris.

And I would say what makes it stand out from other, like, cooked ham products is that it's not smoked. So like, if you're familiar with, like, a smoky kind of ham in the States, a white ham in France will never be smoked.

No, it's not smoked. It's— it's very neutral. It's considered, like, diet food here too, if it doesn't have the, like, fat.

The "quain."

Yeah. Yeah,

it's like— it's like something a dietitian would, like, prescribe to you. Yeah, just eat ham. And I think a lot of people— a lot of French people eat really simply at home. And so dinner, like, if you went out to lunch, your dinner at home could literally be some salad and two slices of ham.

Yeah.

When I was first living here, when I was living with a homestay family in the north of France, like, if they didn't know what to make on, like, your average weeknight, you know, whereas my parents might have, like, ordered a pizza, they would break out the charcuterie.

So like a package of, like, supermarket ham, boil some potatoes, and mix plain yogurt with Dijon mustard and, like, freeze-dried— the, like, shelf-stable jar of, like, dried chives. And that was dinner.

Yeah. That's dinner. That's fine.

Yeah. It was great.

Yeah, fair enough. It's easy. Yeah.

So the other way that you'll often see jambon de Paris is in, like, probably the most classic French sandwich, which I know how you feel about French sandwiches, Caroline.

French sandwiches have too much bread and not enough filling. That is a fact. And they are often boring AF.

And so how do you feel about le sandwich parisien, le Parisien, the jambon beurre?

The jambon beurre. It's literally just butter and ham. It's something I would probably never order. I mean, it is good, right? It's good, but it hurts your mouth to eat baguette. Like, it's sharp. It's— it's not a particularly wonderful sandwich, in my opinion.

Yeah.

And there's usually not enough meat.

I mean, fair. There's a lot of bread.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, jambon blanc, like, whether you're eating it as your diet food or you're having it on a sandwich, is the most sold charcuterie product in France. The second most sold charcuterie product in France is saucisson sec, which is what we have on our little planche here.

Saucisson is basically the French version of salami, right? It's going to be generally smaller than a salami in terms of diameter and maybe a little bit drier.

Yeah.

But it varies in size too. Here it's called rosette de lion.

Yes, you guys have a very special one.

Yeah. And then we also have the gésu, which is from, like, a nicer cut, right? The gésu de lion. It's a little bit of a different shape. It's almost like a flower shape. The rosette is also a flower shape. If you look at these, we have this flower shape. Can I see it?

Yeah. Thank you. You can take that back.

So this is not— I don't think this is a rosette, but often we do get a slight sort of flower shape.

Yeah, I think one thing you often note— notice about French-style sort of salamis or dry-cured sausages is that, first of all, they don't have quite as much fat distribution as the Italian ones do.

Yeah. This is definitely—

They're a little leaner.

Leaner. And this is quite dry. I like my sausage dry. That's a choice.

Yeah, I do too.

Yeah.

I think the world of dry-cured sausage, because it is so popular, is another thing where we see a lot of industrialization.

Yes.

So there are a couple of ways that you can sort of, like, seek out a really good.

Let me eat it.

Saucisson. And that's usually the three F's of saucisson. So the first F is the fleur, which is the flower, but it's the bloom. It's— it's the mushroom. It's the fungus growing on the outside that gives it that white sort of coating. And that's a natural thing that happens when you use a natural casing. Because we got two possibilities for casings on sausages.

So you want that white, bloomy.

Yeah. Yeah, because it's a sign that you're using a natural casing. If you're not using a natural casing, it's plastic.

Oh, really?

You'll see— yeah, you'll see a lot of French people peel their saucisson.

Yeah.

Like, if you serve— first of all, if you serve saucisson to French people, you'll typically not— you'll serve them the whole sausage.

Yeah.

And then someone has to be the designated slicer.

It's usually the man of the house.

It is.

Yeah.

And some people, like, do a real hack job with it, and they cut, like, really thick coins because they can't be bothered.

I have to say, for all of his flaws, my ex was very good at cutting thin slices of saucisson. I appreciated that.

That could go on a CV.

Yeah, it should.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, a lot of people peel their saucisson because they're used to eating the industrial stuff, which is basically wrapped in, like, cellulose, you know?

Yeah.

And so the alternative is, of course, intestine.

I've never really peeled it, but I'm—

I don't peel it either.

Yeah. I'm not— would I be able to tell if it was cellulose versus—

It'd be chewier.

Okay. But it's edible.

It's edible.

Yeah.

It'll pass through you.

Great.

You're fine.

It's fiber.

It's good. And so the third F is— so the first F is the— is the fleur. The second F is the forme, so the shape, which again, sort of shows you if it's a natural casing or an unnatural casing. You mentioned the gésu. The gésu is stuffed in, like, a thick— the thickest part of the intestine. So it's got this weird giant shape.

Yeah.

You can't— you know, you get that naturally.

It's not uniform.

No, it's not uniform. If you buy it in the supermarket, often they'll all be the same, or they'll all— like, they'll be quite same from top to bottom on the sausage. I feel like this could be very— very poorly misconstrued. And also, they will— if they have any irregularities, they will have the same irregularities as their cousins. So if you line up a bunch of industrial sausages, they'll all look imperfect in the same way.

Okay, so do they build in imperfections? I was going to make a joke about lining up your cousins to see their irregularities, but I think that would be very weird. Do they— will they, like, make a fake irregularity to make it look more natural? Or is it, like, it's just the assembly line error?

I mean, I don't know if it's assembly line error or not, but it reminds me of this, like, bog standard, like, supermarket wine, which is Jypé Chenet.

Jypé Chenet.

And all of their bottles are a little bit curved, but they're all curved. Like, it makes it look like it's a handmade bottle, but they're all curved in exactly the same way.

It's super annoying.

So yeah, I don't know what they're doing, but it is— you are looking for, like, an irregular shape because it should be stuffed into an intestine.

It should be, yeah.

And the last one is ficelle, which is the string.

The string. Okay.

And the string seals off your sausage. And if you use a staple, then it's probably an industrial casing.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. I think the thing is, you are lucky enough and smart enough. So you're lucky enough to live in Lyon, capital of charcuterie, and you're smart enough to buy your charcuterie from a charcutier.

Yes.

Who is a specialist in charcuterie.

We don't buy our charcuterie ever, really, from the supermarket. We are always buying it either from our butcher, who is also a charcutier, or from the charcuterie place.

Yeah. And I think that's where French people are so great at, like, select— like, I think they pride themselves on picking an expert from whom to buy something. So they don't actually have to know that much about the thing, because you can really trust your seller.

Yeah.

Like, you go and you're like, "Hey, what's good today?"

Yeah.

And you don't necessarily need to worry that it's not going to be excellent.

No. And it's funny because I feel like Americans come here, they look at the market and they're like, "Oh my God, there's— there's raw meat and it's not, you know, it's close to the cooked food and blah, blah, blah, food safety." And I'm like, food safety when you're dealing with these professionals is— is fine. You're good.

Food safety is when cow shit is getting sprayed on your romaine lettuce and everyone's getting E. coli from the one factory that makes all the romaine. Like, consolidation is the enemy of food safety. The smaller it is, the easier it is to be clean and to keep things under control.

And so, you know, I really— I— you will see at a butcher that there's, like, an area for prepared foods, and then there's the raw food, and it's in the same case. They're not touching.

Right.

You know? They're not touching, but, like, they're in the same case. And everyone's like, "Oh, do you think, like, the vapors are coming off of the raw food onto the cooked food?" Like, it's fine. But it is funny that we are so— we're such sticklers for food safety in the States, but in this really reductive way that doesn't actually translate to being safer.

Right. And we also end up, like, we create these food systems of, like, factory farming where we breed super bacteria. So when we get sick, we get really fucking sick.

Awesome.

French people are a little more like blasé about, like, mild cases of food poisoning.

That's funny.

But then, like, they get it once from, like, leaving the beef bourguignon out on the stove all night, accidentally, and then they're like, "Oh, I wasn't feeling so well yesterday, but now I'm fine." And it's not like there's E. coli in my salad.

That's funny.

So. So the third most popular charcuterie, most sold charcuterie in France is the category of jambon sec. So this is probably the— if you're— the one you're most familiar with, again, is probably an Italian one, prosciutto.

Yeah, parma, prosciutto.

Yeah.

Those dry— dry-sliced hams.

Yeah. But we have a long tradition of making that here in France, and there's a lot of different ones from different regions.

And I think this is where we really get into the interesting part about charcuterie is that, much like wine, much like cheese, every region is going to have its own specialties. And some of them might cross borders, especially the ones that have an AOP, an AOC, an IGP, which is, you know, the AOC junior.

Let's break that down for a second.

Let's break it.

So, you know, we've talked about the AOC, AOP. They're interchangeable. This is appellation d'origine contrôlée. For charcuterie, it's going to be AOP, appellation d'origine protégée. This is something better known in wine.

It's our basically system where, legally, to name something the valuable name, for example, jambon de Bayonne, it has to be a ham from certain pigs in a certain place. And I know you're going to tell me all about jambon de Bayonne, but basically, it doesn't just apply to wine. It's not just about grapes and vineyards.

It's also about the breed of cow for your Comté. It's about the minimum acreage those cows get to graze on. So these rules are really detailed, and what they do is they protect the value of the name.

So parma ham is a— is the Italian version. It's a DOP, right? And prosciutto is not, I don't think.

Prosciutto di Parma.

Prosciutto di Parma. Okay.

Yeah.

And so jambon sec is jambon sec. And then some places have the AOP. I think the jambon des Alpes is not an AOP.

I think that there's a lot more IGPs in ham.

IGPs. It's basically saying, if something's an IGP, it does have to reach a certain quality standard.

Yeah.

And it does have to have some sort of sense of origin. It is a looser and larger area than for an AOP.

Yeah. And I would say what we're really looking to protect with all of these things is quality, yes, but almost to a lesser extent than consistency.

Consistency and brand value, I would argue.

And brand value. Totally. So when it comes to dry-cured ham, we're going to have a couple of different varieties from different regions that are going to kind of reflect the norms and the traditions of those regions. So IGP, jambon de Bayonne. Bayonne is.

That's an IGP? It's not an AOP?

It's an IGP.

Okay.

Yeah. And that's a ham that comes from the Basque region. So in the Basque region, we're going to have black-footed pigs that sort of get to semi-wild, you know, forage on all sorts of delicious acorns and what have you. We're going to have a resulting ham that's quite a bit rosier, redder in color.

We're very close to Spain at this point, right?

Yes.

We are— we are— this is the closest thing you're going to get to Spanish ham, which, honestly, I mean, if anyone should get the crown for best ham in the world.

Oh, yeah.

It's— it's the. Hands down.

00:16:30 - 00:16:30 Caroline

Jambon ibérico.

Yeah.

Spanish ham is so good. It's not that. It's not as intense as the best Spanish ham. It's more like a serrano.

Yeah.

Than an ibérico.

They're also going to really expertly source the ingredients they use to sort of preserve the ham. So they're going to use a very specific salt to dry-cure it. Some of these hams are also going to be rubbed in espelette pepper.

Ooh, yes.

Which is, like, the only.

Local.

Yeah.

The only spicy in France.

The only spicy in France. It's not even that spicy.

It's not even that spicy.

But then we also have IGP hams from other regions. We have one in the Auvergne, which I recently— so when I'm not doing this podcast, I write a lot for the internet, and I write for this magazine called Atlas Obscura. And I recently got to write a story about this fantastic crew of

ham producers, ham agers, who teamed up with the church that is the highest altitude church in the world in Auvergne, in a city called Saint-Flour.

On top of Volcano.

On top of Volcano, where all IGP Auvergne hams are dry-aged at altitude in the mountains. And this church had this, like, falling-apart organ, and the priest there had already put bees on the roof to make honey.

Cool.

Priests are always doing weird fucking stuff with food.

They love it.

They love it. It's great. If you remember one thing from this podcast.

Monks.

It's always the monks.

Priests. Yeah. They're up to all kinds of good up there.

Yeah. In

the food world.

They get bored. What are they going to do?

That's what they're going to do.

So.

This is how it sucks.

Right?

This will make ham.

That's exactly what he did. He decided to get some ham from local producers, put it up in the belfry.

Nice.

And where, like, the cross-breezes meet, these hams are dry-aged to perfection.

That's so cool.

They're also blessed.

I bet they are. Yes.

And so they sell them, and all of the proceeds are donated back to the church to improve, you know, they fixed the organ.

Oh, that's awesome. They

commissioned, like, a— like a new gospel book. So they're just, like, selling ham for the profit of the church.

That's sweet. I love that. I bet they can get that in Lyon, maybe? Or is it, like, super hyper-local?

You can get it— you can buy it online.

Yeah.

But you can only buy it directly from the church.

Okay.

Well, we would definitely be in trouble if we were talking about dry-cured pork products in France if we didn't talk about Corsica. The Corsicans would come after us.

The Corsicans would be right. Corsican ham and meat products and cheese and food in general and wine are excellent and under-sung, I think.

Yeah, I think you're right. And we do have multiple dry-cured AOP protected, so a step above the IGPs, pork products from Corsica. Copa is probably pretty familiar. We have similar products in Italy.

Copa is really special.

Yeah.

Yeah. Copa is really special. I will often see that the Corsican ones, they are actually wrapped in herbs as well. They're, like, coated in a dried herb. They're very— they're very special.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think the Corsicans have— tend to have, like, a rugged, pretty intense aroma profile when it comes to their dry-cured meats and also their cheeses. Like, there's a lot of sheep cheese. There's a lot of dried herbs on the cheeses, dried herbs on the— on the meats.

So, I mean, we have Copa, we have something called figatelou, which also has liver in it. So, again, we're going to end up with this, like, more intense flavor. We have Lonzo, which is a leaner sort of dry-cured pork specialty that's made with the loin.

I've had that. It's really nice.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's sort of like a little bit— little rectangle, right?

It's usually like— it looks like a pork loin.

Okay.

Like— like it looks like a tenderloin almost.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's— it's just really dry.

Yeah, it's really dry. Often cut, like, paper thin.

Yeah, I like that.

You don't need a lot of it.

Yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, the Corsicans really know what they're about when it comes to the dry-cured— the dry-cured meats.

Yeah.

And then on the other side of the spectrum, we have all of these, like, force meats, the pâtés, the sausages, the things like that.

These are the things that I feel like Americans are so deeply uncomfortable with.

Because they're so afraid.

They're so good, though. Like, we just don't grow up with it. Like, we don't grow up with pâté. We don't grow up with— with rillette. We don't grow up with sausage that way. Maybe sausage is different. Like, we grew up with, like, breakfast sausage, kind of Italian sausage, but we definitely don't grow up with the cold, wet meats.

Yeah.

Throw out the dry meats.

The cold wet meats.

You know, and pâté, I find that pâté makes Americans really uncomfortable because it's just a textural thing. And it's funny because Americans generally like really soft food.

Yeah.

But I feel like they— they're not comfortable with pâté. And it's too bad because pâté is awesome. And pâté is a real way for someone to be creative, too.

Totally.

And it's a great way to use up all, you know, the bits of the meat that are, like, less attractive or not as appealing of a texture, and you're making something really delicious.

Yeah.

And you're able to put fruit in it and different wine or liquor and just different flavorings. Like, pâté is awesome.

Yeah. And I think that that sort of, like, mystery meat thing is part of what makes Americans so uncomfortable with it. And, of course, that is, like, the origin of pâté is, like, what are we going to do with all these leftovers? Grind them up, cobble them together, and actually the original pâtés. So I get to say it twice in one episode. Etymologically speaking, pâté means doughed, like wrapped in a dough.

Okay.

So the word pâte is the same root as the word pastry or pasta. And pâté means wrapped in a dough or doughed.

Okay.

And so the idea is that you would make, like, a— like a force meat mixture, like a sausage mixture. And rather than wrap it in a sausage casing, you would wrap it in, like, a savory, salty dough.

Well, that's pâté croûte.

Right.

So pâté croûte or pâté en croûte is pâté in dough. Like, it's in— the dough is— it's like a suet dough. It's a thick dough.

Yeah.

And it is lining this big rectangular mold, and then you fill it with pâté, you— you cover it, and you put big holes in it. They'll put a beautiful design on it, and then they'll fill it up with aspic as well. Is that at the end?

Yeah. Yeah. So basically, so we have, like, the original, like, quick and dirty version was, like, the medieval version. Then we unwrap the pâté and make it into a terrine. So whenever people are looking at the difference between a pâté and a terrine.

There's no pastry.

There's no pastry. But these days, because.

A pâté croûte.

Well, okay. So, yeah. So basically, the original pâté has a crust. Then we unwrap it. It becomes a terrine. It's baked in a terracotta dish. And so, essentially, we have a pâté that's no longer wrapped in a dough that's often in a jar or a can. Then we have a terrine that's baked, and then we resuscitate the dough but make it a nicer, tastier dough because the original medieval dough you wouldn't want to eat.

Okay. It was just a container. It

was like a preservative.

Okay.

Yeah. And then we come to this pâté croûte situation, which you guys in Lyon are masters of.

It's our thing. We have the, like, competition, the Mondial Concours de Pâté Croûte.

Yes.

Run by the Brotherhood of Pâté Croûte.

The Brotherhood.

I've never been. It's hard to get in. I really want to go next year. That's one of my goals in life. It's, like, hard to get. The tickets are, like, €500. I'm not going to pay that. I need to get invited.

But pâté croûte is taken very seriously. They can be very beautiful. They need to be really creative. There's people from all over the world that come and do it. It's hard. It's a skill.

You know, you need to have really good flavor. You need to have really good texture. It needs to have a beautiful cross-section. So it needs to be beautiful on top and beautiful as it's sliced.

And you see people doing really cool stuff with the interior. So you think about, like, like Fimo Clay. Do you remember that stuff?

Yeah.

It's almost like that.

It's totally like that.

Like, you're building out the interior so it looks beautiful when you do the cross-section. But here, we never say pâté en croûte. We say pâté croûte.

Pâté croûte. Exactly.

Yeah.

And this is something where— so I actually did report on this contest. And.

Did you go?

I didn't get to go.

Oh, we need to go.

It was so exciting.

We need to get in. It's hard to get in.

But I saw some pictures, and it was, like, these guys have made— actually, there was a woman who placed really highly last year, but there is— it's mostly guys. Someone had created, like, a toadstool mushroom.

Yeah. I know. That's what I'm thinking of.

Foie gras.

So cute.

And, like— and you're right. This is where you can play with not just the visual, but also with the flavors.

Yeah. Often there will be foie in it. I see that pretty frequently. You know, I get my charcuterie from around the corner from a really classic Lyonnais, Charcuterie Sibilia. Charcuterie Sibilia. And they have seasonal ones. So right now, they have one that's shaped like a triangle that has, like, morels in it. It's really delicious. But I really love in the summer, they do it with chicken and preserved lemon. So it's not just pork.

Yeah.

You know, there's a friend in the neighborhood, and he makes, like, custom pâté croûte with, like, words on it. I mean, they're so cute. Like, he's got, like, letters. I mean, it's almost like a cake, right? Like, it's a celebration cake, but it's a pâté croûte. And he has a lamb and pistachio one. Often you find nuts in it.

Yeah. Often nuts.

Often nuts. But it is— it's a dense meat mixture. So the pâté croûte is not soft inside. It is dense. You would often have a slice if you were at a restaurant. You would order the pâté croûte as a starter, and you might— you would probably share it with your table.

Yeah.

So you would cut it into quarters, and everyone gets a quarter.

And you would eat it with a fork and knife, and you wouldn't spread it on bread.

No.

Right.

No, it's not really spreadable.

No.

And it has its own bread, right? It has the pastry.

Right.

I actually really like the aspic. So basically, after— when you're baking it, it needs to steam because the meat needs to let off water, right? So they put these big holes in it, and they kind of create vents, and they put foil around the edge so the vent doesn't burn.

And then you're basically left with this space between pastry and the meat. And so after that, they top it up with aspic, which is a really thick, gelatinous broth that then will solidify into basically being meat jello. And I love that part. But that part is often getting left for me at the end.

Yeah. And that part terrifies Americans, which always makes me laugh because everybody in America is drinking bone broth and taking, like, collagen supplements. And I'm like, that's collagen, man.

I love that. And it's funny because here, you can't buy bone broth very easily. You can get it from some charcuteurs. You can get, like, chicken broth or bird broth, volaille broth, but it's, like, €14 for a tiny bottle.

French people don't really cook with chicken broth at home. They just use bouillon cubes, which is so sad because bouillon ain't broth.

So I make my own chicken broth. I do it in my Instant Pot, and that's sort of a weekly ritual for me so I can cook with broth that is better than bouillon.

It's way better. So when it comes to that contest, like, it is quite exacting, and there's a lot of, like, flourishes and flair. Actually, Japanese chefs tend to be really good at it.

They are good at French food. They have— there's a similarity of, like, haute cuisine in France to the Japanese aesthetic, I think. It's very precise.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it really is, like— like you said, it's a restaurant thing. It's a special occasion thing. Like, people often buy it at Christmas time. The flip side is, like, your run-of-the-mill pâté or also rillette, which people tend to just, like, have as an appetizer.

I love rillette.

Yeah.

I love rillette. Can you explain the difference between pâté and rillette? Because they are very different.

They are super different. I mean, already just texturally speaking, pâté tends to be more like if you imagined that you took what was in a sausage casing and you baked it instead of frying it. Like, it's pretty dense. It's pretty fatty. It's got, like, a lot of different texture pockets. You've got, like, meat pockets, fat pockets.

Well, so what about the, like, smooth pâté? Because I see that.

Those are generally going to be liver pâtés.

Yes.

And so they're going to be liver, usually pork liver, although they might be, as you said, bird liver, like foie de volaille, that are cooked and then pureed with cream.

But that also would be labeled here probably as a mousse, right?

Yes.

Rather than a pâté.

Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah.

Or you might see something, like, called pâté de foie, which would have.

Liver pâté.

A little— yeah. It would have, like, pockets of smooth liver in with the rest of the, like, textured meat.

Okay. Because I think a lot of Americans, when they think of pâté, they think of something that you are spreading on.

Right.

Your bread.

Yeah. And here, I think most pâté are like chunky.

They're chunky. They're thicker. Yeah.

Yeah. Rillette is spreadable.

Rillette is spreadable.

So rillette is.

It's not smooth, though.

No, but it's spreadable. And it's something that— whereas pâté is made by cobbling together meat and fat and seasonings and then cooking them together, whether you're baking them or cooking them in a sterilizer in a jar. Rillette is made by slow cooking meat and then whipping, like, sort of mixing it with fat afterwards.

Because rillette has a stringy texture, essentially.

Yeah.

Like, it's something that for an American who's never had it, the closest thing I would say would be it's like the way tuna mayonnaise kind of.

Totally.

Has a meaty texture, but it's broken up. And we do make rillette de thon. Like, tuna rillette here is something you would make at home, and that would be with samoret, which is like a French cream cheese and tuna, and it's really good.

Yeah.

But we— they basically are doing that, like, imagine doing that with chicken meat, where you get those strands. I've never seen chicken rillette, but you see duck rillette a lot.

Yeah. You see duck, goose, and pork most of the time.

Goose is my favorite.

Yeah.

Goose rillette is so good. Duck rillette's a little stronger than goose. I like pork, too, a lot. But rillette looks like cat food, but I fucking love it.

It really does. And, I mean, honestly, so that, like, sort of stringy, like, philandrous texture, it's basically like you're cooking the meat.

Philandrous?

Philandrous.

Like filandreux?

Like philandering?

No, like fil. You are whipping out these words, girlfriend. What? Philandrous? I feel like that's like cheapy.

Not philandrous. Philandreux.

Philandreux? I don't think that's a word in English.

Stringy. It's stringy.

Your rillette is cheating on you, okay?

It's better than stringy, okay?

It's cheating on you.

It's got the texture of pulled pork, but, like, pulled pork if you pulled the hell out of it.

Yeah. Pulled pork if you totally shredded it and then whipped it.

With fat.

With bacon fat.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that sounds pretty fucking good.

I mean, that sounds great.

Yeah.

So typically, those are all going to be appetizers in France.

Yes.

And that's really where my anger comes from.

Because you know what's not an appetizer in France?

Cheese.

Cheese. And so here, you will really pretty rarely see cheese and charcuterie on the same plate if you are at dinner.

Right. So if you're in a French person's house and you're going to have, like, a pretty classic, like, easy— like, let's say you go to a friend's house. You're not being invited over for an impressive, crazy meal. You're just being invited over. Come eat à la bonne franquette with our family.

You're going to get, as an appetizer, charcuterie. Maybe it'll be pâté. Maybe it'll be, you know, pâté croûte, rillette, saucisson, whatever.

Then you're going to have your main. Then you're going to have your cheese, and then you're going to have your dessert. And so they're very separated.

They are not on the same plate.

The idea of putting them on the same plate is really something that we start to see for the first time in wine bars and cafes.

Okay. Because it's part of then the nibbling culture of basically French happy hour, which is the apéro.

Right. And that actually comes down to a law.

Oh, really?

So the idea is that there are certain types of restaurants that are not allowed to serve you just a drink.

Ah, yes.

And they might also not have a full kitchen.

So it's basically a liquor license issue. You can't serve the alcohol without some food, and you need food that you don't need a kitchen for.

Yeah. And so you're like, throw it on a board. Cheese and charcuterie.

Yeah. And that's a planche. But you'll notice, if you're at a wine bar in Paris, your planche is not going to have fruit on it. It might have— it probably won't even have nuts on it. It will literally— it might have, like, a little blop of salad.

Yeah. Or, like, some pickles. Some pickles.

00:32:04 - 00:32:22 Emilie

Yeah. Although if it— if you ask for mustard to accompany your charcuterie, you are actually insulting the people who have made it because you're saying that their charcuterie is not good enough to eat on its own. So if you ever don't get mustard in a restaurant, don't be, like, weird about it. Like, try to just, like, enjoy it.

I would never want mustard on charcuterie. That's weird.

I wouldn't either, but a lot of Americans I meet want mustard with their charcuterie. And I get it, friends. I am a huge mustard fan. We're definitely doing a mustard episode.

I mean, I love mustard, too, but I don't want it on my charcuterie.

No.

I will— I've had pâté croûte with whole grain mustard.

Yeah.

That's one thing, but that's another.

But we are starting to see this more in people's homes.

For sure. No, people do this now because it's easy, and it's called an apéro dînatoire.

Yeah.

So basically, that means you're coming over to my house. I'm busy. I don't have time to cook. I live in the city. I don't have a kitchen. I mean, I don't know.

You know, this is basically I'm slapping whatever I have on a board, and we're going to eat it with a bottle of wine, and that's dinner.

And this is basically, you know, for an apéro dînatoire, you would have cheese, you would have meat. They could be on the same board. You would probably whip out a tub of hummus.

You might get a quiche from Picard and eat it up.

Yeah. Yeah. A little Picard, a little frozen quiche. This is not cooking dinner. This is just grabbing whatever you have or whatever's easy, shoving it in the microwave or the oven or not, serving it cold, and just being very, very casual and enjoying the party.

Like, an apéro dînatoire is something that people do for parties because it's easy, and you can feed a crowd, and it also allows everybody to bring something. If you're invited to an apéro dînatoire, you are not coming empty-handed.

You're going to bring some bread. You're going to ask the hostess or the host, probably, like, what should I bring? You know, and they'll tell you what they have, and then you go around that. You obviously need to bring wine.

But it's definitely something that is, I think, popular, certainly with our generation. We're the same age. We're 37 right now.

Yeah.

We're 38.

We're in our late 30s. I'm in June.

Okay. So we'll be 38 by the time this.

I'm a Gemini Scorpio rising. That's why I'm so evil.

Nice. I'm a Gemini Moon.

There you go.

Well, we will be 38 by the time this airs. So we're both 37 right now. And so this is something that I see we do with our friend group.

Yeah.

But it's for people who don't have time to cook. You know, this wouldn't be— you wouldn't have an apéro dînatoire on a Sunday lunch.

No. No. And I think the very phrase, like, apéro is like apéritif. It's what you're supposed to have before dinner.

Yeah.

Dînatoire turns it into dinner. So it's like snacky bites that then extend into the dinner hour.

Yeah.

It's really cool because even if you don't cook, like, you can showcase that.

You can entertain.

Yeah. And you can showcase that really French value of, like, sourcing. So you're like.

Curation.

Yeah. Curation. That's exactly it. You can walk in and be like, "Hey, I brought you the really good bread from my baker, and I also got you some really good saucisson from my saucisson guy, or I got you this ham that was aged in a church at the top of a mountain."

I love that. Yeah. And that is— that is a really— I really like the apéro dînatoire vibe. I think it just makes it easy to effortlessly.

Totally.

Yeah.

And I'm very— I'm always very happy to see some cheese with my charcuterie.

Yeah.

I just really don't want people to keep calling them charcuterie boards.

Charcuterie boards. My pet peeve with the charcuterie boards on Instagram is that people are putting, like, strawberries on them in February, and I'm like, "Bitch, we don't have strawberries in February." Unless you're in Australia. But please. And the crabby daggette, man. I can't tolerate it. I just can't.

So I'm very excited, honestly, to come over to your house and have one of your maximalist American boards with some really amazing curated French products.

Oh, yeah. I do— I do the in between. We make it beautiful à la américaine, and then we use beautiful French products à la française. Donc we end up with something really, really nice. We are the real fish wives of Paris, and we'll see you next time to discover even more crazy, fun facts about French food and wine.

Au revoir. À bientôt.