Letters: French food is unseasoned and bland, bland, bland

To the Editor,

I was very much taken by Cynthia Colby's letter about the blandness of French food. 

I moved here just over two years ago and France has such a reputation for fine food (and I'm a foodie), that the food was one of the many things I was looking forward to. 

Instead it is one of the very few things that we have found to be disappointing here.

The supermarket is full of ready meals which are not seasoned properly, and I can't find a decent sausage.

I long for proper bacon but it doesn't exist here.

Sadly there are no restaurants left in our local town, just a pizza machine in the Intermarché and a burger van once a week. 

We tried a Réunion restaurant once, expecting a good kick there. Friendly service, nice environment. 

I asked the waitress if the food was spicy. "Oh no", she said, with a reassuring smile. 

I wondered if she had misunderstood me, but she was not wrong. Looked nice but had little taste.

I can get most things that I want, provided that I am prepared to drive 40 minutes to Limoges, but even then the selection of chillies is usually take-it-or-leave-it.

I expect there are good restaurants in the big cities that have an ethnically mixed population but out here in the sticks there is very little. 

France might once have held the crown for the finest food in the world, but it doesn't anymore: Unseasoned, bland, bland, bland.

It's a good job I like cooking!

Steve Maskery, by email