OT : French market

Maybe the feeble french palette can't handle great British inventions
like the chicken tikka marsala.

 

Maybe sir needs to study the history of good French cuisine and where it
all started from.

 

Curiously, there is a thriving trade in exporting UK-made Indian ready
meals, both frozen and chilled, to France.

They just don't like to know it comes from Britain.

The company I visted, which specialised in exporting UK food to France,
had a legal "paper" French incorporation and a dedicated Paris telephone
line which forwarded instantly to their offices in Lincolnshire, where
it was answered by a French girl, who took the orders.

All the products were, naturally, in French packaging, and delivered in
French vehicles. They had "Made in England" somewhere on them, I
suppose, but apparently the vast majority of customers just assumed they
were dealing with a French firm.

 

Strange then that were riots in the streets when Marks and Spencer
closed in Paris. I seem to recall the French being rather great fans of
their British produce. Not cuisine I grant you but nonetheless.

 

In message

Sort of, a pre runner of the New Deli call centre.

 

One of the items I was always asked to bring with me when I visited
ESA's head office in Paris just before Christmas was Marks & Spencer's
Christmas puddings. I don't know if this was before M&S had an outlet
there or they did and didn't sell puds.

 

*Ding*

 

Curiously, there is a thriving trade in exporting UK-made Indian ready
meals, both frozen and chilled, to France.[/QUOTE]

I wish some of it made it down here. It's still unusual to find even
basic products like curry paste over here. There's a fair North
African contingent in Mulhouse, and various chillis & fresh coriander
can be bought there, but in the supermarkets, no chance.

Of course, as well as French prejudice, we have to deal with the
german pallette round here. If it ain't Schweinfleish, forget it, and
if it has any flavour, make sure you boil it out well...

 

Mmmm an Alsace salad and a stein of Rot Haus Pils.

 

S&A Foods - A Derby based company that makes curry for most of the UK
supermarkets. Years ago I worked for the company that provided their
computer systems..

http://www.foodcampus.com/channel.asp?PageFlag=12&ArticleId=148

HTH

Oh it also says they had to make the recipies more bland for French
people. Quelle surprise!

 

I had dealings with S&A. Their founder, Perween Warsi, is now one of the
richest women in the UK.

Doesn't surprise me at all. The Brits are used to curry - the Frogs
aren't, and what might seem mild to us is probably blistering to them.

What's less widely known is how recipes are tailored even for regions of
the UK. I remember visiting a frozen pizza maker that used fewer herbs
(like oregano) in its pizzas destined for the Scots market because the
Jocks didn't like the taste of herbs as much as the English.

I also remember going round a bakery called Auld's in Glasgow (a big
company that supplies its own bakers' shops as well as supermarket and
catering customers) and watching strawberry cream tarts coming down the
line. They were the most vivid red you've ever seen.

For the Jock market, again, because they liked their strawberry tarts to
be red, red RED. For "south o' the border" they didn't use the
artificial colouring (or not as much).

 

And (unsurprisingly) an incredibly hard faced person to deal with in
business.

I'd not like to work for her.

 

"Not bland enough for you sir? We could make it Steak&KidneyPudding
Bland if you like."

 

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 09:50:20 +0000,
(The Older Gentleman) bored us
all completely to death with wittery prose along the lines of:

Heh, that's true. Go to pretty much any supermarket in France and to
the 'Produits du monde' section and you'll see loads of Indian stuff.
Not sure how spicy it is, mind.

Not seen the ready cooked stuff, but then again, I've never looked.

 

"Zeees Chickeeen and mershroom pot noodle, eeet is burning me wis ze
ferocious spiceees! "

 

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 11:37:54 -0000, Ginge
<> bored us all completely to death
with wittery prose along the lines of:

Heh, that's a surprise.

 

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 09:53:04 +0000, Paul Corfield
<> bored us all completely to death with wittery
prose along the lines of:

IIRC, the food sections [1] in M&S were hugely popular. They were
whenever I went.

[1] Stuff like English wine, whisky, tea, haggis, salads, bacon,
biscuits, crisps (S&V), etc.

 

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 10:03:05 +0000, Mick Whittingham
<> bored us all completely to death
with wittery prose along the lines of:

Ah, forgot the puds. Seasonal, dontcha know.

 

On Mon, 15 Dec 2003 09:53:04 +0000, Paul Corfield
<> bored us all completely to death with wittery
prose along the lines of:

Bad form, etc, but I remember one of my colleagues going mad for baked
beans.

 

You are Des AICMFF sweeping generalisations.

"Any supermarket in Paris", perhaps.

Oh, I've looked. We can (or could, if we wanted) get pseudo-chinese
and vietnamese stuff, but that's pretty much it for 'foreign'. And
it's crap, too :-{