I have a lot of family in france, I have citizenship and lived there for about a decade earlier in my life. Not really as a french person but not quite as an expat either.
The thing that struck me wasn't so much about the quality of the food per se but just how much weight of ritual there was around it. I would see average working class families sit down for an hour+ dinner with appetizer, salad, cheese course every single day. It wasn't particularly fancy or extremely labor-intensive, usually at least one course was just repurposed leftovers from a day or two earlier. It was pretty "normal" food but set out so that eating it just took a while.
Similarly basically every worker, even low-prestige hourly laborers, was fully entitled to take a 90 minute lunch and they did, every single day. These rhythms of time and food were clearly valued highly, respect for them was built into the structures of daily life at the legal and social level. It communicates to people that how you eat matters, that it is something to pay attention to.
Snacking between meals was heavily discouraged as well, almost stigmatized even. It was considered childish, something you were expected to have grown out of needing to do routinely as an adult.
I also remember a clear sense of skepticism and even contempt for convenience and fast foods. This was about twenty years ago now and I understand that's relaxed considerably since then, especially with young people. But I think it's clear that natural french conservatism served them right here: they were correct to resist incorporating these foods into their lifestyle.
I think you should work through these thoughts with a trusted confidant in private! Your sense of embarrassment needs some fine tuning before you continue doing this in a public forum.
The thing that struck me wasn't so much about the quality of the food per se but just how much weight of ritual there was around it. I would see average working class families sit down for an hour+ dinner with appetizer, salad, cheese course every single day. It wasn't particularly fancy or extremely labor-intensive, usually at least one course was just repurposed leftovers from a day or two earlier. It was pretty "normal" food but set out so that eating it just took a while.
Similarly basically every worker, even low-prestige hourly laborers, was fully entitled to take a 90 minute lunch and they did, every single day. These rhythms of time and food were clearly valued highly, respect for them was built into the structures of daily life at the legal and social level. It communicates to people that how you eat matters, that it is something to pay attention to.
Snacking between meals was heavily discouraged as well, almost stigmatized even. It was considered childish, something you were expected to have grown out of needing to do routinely as an adult.
I also remember a clear sense of skepticism and even contempt for convenience and fast foods. This was about twenty years ago now and I understand that's relaxed considerably since then, especially with young people. But I think it's clear that natural french conservatism served them right here: they were correct to resist incorporating these foods into their lifestyle.