French provincial kitchens only exist outside France. The average French kitchen is a modest, uncluttered, practical affair. It is not designed to be an exotic showroom of carpentry and exquisite furniture. We do not crowd the walls with cook books, artworks, eccentric displays of dried herbs and other paraphernalia. We don’t suspend pots and pans and other jangling ironmongery from the ceiling. We like to keep our gadgets and our utensils out of sight, just as we hate to smell what we’re cooking throughout the house. Cooking smells, like cooking equipment, are confined to the cuisine and the salle de manger. Just as good food must appear effortless and fresh so must the kitchen appear spotless and ready to burst into action at a moment’s notice.
Le Corbusier wrote a house is a machine for living in and the same can be said of a well-ordered kitchen. When you enter a good French kitchen the impression you leave with is generally one of efficiency, cleanliness, and order. Everything is in its right place and there is a place for everything. The French do not bother with peripherals in the kitchen. It is not a meeting place. It is not an extra television room. It is not a laboratory, it is not a museum. And it is most certainly NOT the place to keep a few bottles of wine handy. It has but one purpose: to produce good food.
Now, when I use the word everything I don’t mean we have loads and loads of kitchen stuff secreted away in cupboards and drawers. I am of course referring to the fundamental equipment of a basic French kitchen: a lovingly maintained and always sharp set of knives; a salad shaker; a special non-stick pan for omelets; a large oval cocotte and a large round pot a faire tout for daubs and soups; a griddle and a special copper sauté pan for meats and sauces (the bottom must be perfectly flat or the food will not fry evenly); a pasta boiler; a few medium sized saucepans for vegetables; an electric deep fryer for rissoles and frittes; storage canisters for stocks and fats (particularly duck and goose); a covered roasting pan for the oven; a large sieve or strainer; a fish kettle with an inner drainer; an asparagus steamer; a moulinette or electric puree maker/mixer; assorted stirring and serving spoons, peelers, graters and ladles; an electric kettle; pepper and salt mills; a couple of good solid chopping boards; several stainless steel mixing bowls; a tall bread basket; an Italian espresso maker or percolator; and last, but not least, a dependable oyster knife.
There’s probably other essentials but there it is, the basic French batterie de cuisine. Now for the larder or pantry: a variety of cooking oils, fats and lard from various countries and regions of France; pasta, noodles, couscous and rice; terrines of pâtées, rillettes and preserves; bottles of eau de vie, vinegars and flavourings; cured ham, sausage and bacon for cutting into lardoons and batons; fresh eggs (we don’t keep them in the fridge because they tend to absorb the food odours around them which in turn “dries†them out); lots of beans and pulses; a variety of onions, shallots and fresh garlic; fresh herbs in vases of fresh water; fruit and vegetables in wicker baskets; tins of cassoulet and confits for hectic school days and late night emergencies; bottles of apple and pear juice; cakes and desserts; little snacks and delicacies; dried spices; packs of Perrier, fizzy drinks and bottled water.
The other essential ingredient of the well managed kitchen is the shopping basket. The older generation prefer the deep kind with wheels, like little tartan suitcases, which can be conveniently hauled around without straining the back and arms. The traditional, leather handled braided sac is the most common to be found at markets and food halls stuffed with vegetables and bread. Large plastic supermarket bags you buy for about a euro are popular with men with shopping lists who want to get in and out of a markets with as much food as they can gather in their allotted time. Rucksacks are popular with students. The point is we never shop without a bag and a French housewife always keeps one in the car. We generally dislike those little flimsy plastic things some shops still prefer to give out at the cash register. Our shopping bags, like our kitchens, are always there when we need them, ready and waiting. We keep them for a very long time and unless they’re falling to bits we hang on to them as we do a favourite knife or bowl.
As to the rest of our equipment, our cookers and fridges tend to be small and well used. We prefer gas but accept electricity without a fuss. If there is enough space for a table it will be covered with a bright oilcloth at all times. The walls are generally plain and a clock might be the only practical adornment. And there it is: the average French kitchen. A place of industry and output. Self contained and modest. Go to any of the grand chateaus of the Loire, Chenonceau, Montpoupon, Cheverny, and you will see these basic principles adhered to, though on a much grander scale of course. It is one of those unspoken French conventions, like giving way to traffic on the right, that a good kitchen is the solid foundation of a meal not the star.