On one of our early trips to France, Ron and our friend George were happily parked at a café table one sunny afternoon, and struck up a conversation with a Frenchman. When they ordered their second café au lait, he raised an eyebrow, and a discussion on proper coffee drinking in France ensued. He told them that one never orders a coffee with milk except at breakfast, mid-morning at the latest. After that, only expresso is correct. I believe the word “wimpy”, or its equivalent, was used in reference to afternoon café au lait drinkers. What is amusing about the story is how fast the boys changed their coffee habits. Their manhood thus questioned, at no time since that day have I seen either of them order a café au lait post-breakfast.
By now you know the French rules for drinking wine (see post, 9/30). Now it’s time for the coffee rules, if you want to be a Real Man, or a proper French femme. Though there are some regional variations, here is a primer:
Order a coffee in France and you will get an expresso. An expresso is of course made to order with a machine, so forget the bottomless cup, you pay for each shot.
Unlike wine, you may properly drink a coffee at any time of day EXCEPT during a meal (breakfast being the exception). The French, however, stop drinking coffee an hour or two before a meal—don’t want to spoil that precious appetite, dontcha know.
Coffee is the final course at lunch and dinner, and so a cup of expresso follows dessert. You can try ordering your coffee at the same time as your dessert if you like, but the waiter will still wait and serve it afterwards. This was a bit hard to get used to at first, but we’ve come to appreciate how it stretches out the meal and is a nice little finish, which the French will tell you aids the digestion. And I, who previously liked a bit of coffee with my milk, have become a happy expresso convert, even in the mornings. (A note to dieters: a habitual expresso at the end of a meal is a sort of signal to your body that it’s time to stop eating, and with a spot of sugar it’s a filling finish after a light meal).
Now it’s time to brush up on your lingo, so you can order like a native.
Say un café, un noir, or un expres to order an expresso. For a double expresso, order un double or un grand noir.
Café au lait is expresso with steamed milk. This breakfast drink is served in a larger cup. In our area it is more commonly ordered as un café crème, or just un crème. Despite the name, this is usually made with milk.
Italian cappuccino, often available in France, is expresso with steamed milk plus foamed milk (la mousse) on top.
Une noisette is an expresso with just a bit of foamed milk, served in a small cup.
If you want a weak coffee, essentially an expresso with more hot water, order un café allongé or un café Americain.
For a decaf expresso, order un déca; for any other coffee drink, add the word décaféiné at the end of the term.
A personal tip: We’ve become such expresso addicts that we’ve bought a Nespresso machine to use at home. It’s fast, no messy coffee grinds to deal with, and it makes an absolutely delicious cup of coffee every time, with that lovely crema on top. I’ve lost count of how many friends have rushed out to buy this machine after sampling our coffee.
In a café you’ll often get a tiny morceau de chocolat tucked onto the side of the saucer. In our Cluny pizza restaurant, Le Loup Garou, Madame always serves a morsel of delicious crunchy homemade chocolate with a café. She wouldn’t tell me how she made them, but she finally ‘fessed up when I guessed correctly: it was fine dark chocolate mixed with good old American cornflakes. If you’ve got kids you may have made something similar. It’s a fun treat and super-fast, in case of a Chocolate Emergency. It’s great made with granola, too. My own version follows.
RECIPE: Franco-American Chocolates
- One 16 oz. bar of high quality semi-sweet dark cooking chocolate
- A teaspoon of vanilla
- A tablespoon or so of peanut butter
- Corn flakes, lightly crushed
- Maraschino cherries, optional
- Instead of cornflakes you can use:
- Granola
- OR lightly toasted oatmeal with chopped nuts, raisins, and/or coconut added as desired
Melt chocolate slowly over hot but not boiling water in a metal bowl with the vanilla and peanut butter. Stir until smooth. Stir in as much cereal (with desired additions) as you can incorporate without it becoming too dry; all the cereal should be coated. At this point you should get out a spoon and sample it. If any is left, use a spoon to put little mounds of it on a plate and refrigerate until firm.
If you want to make it prettier, press a quarter of a maraschino cherry into each piece while warm.
In the Comments: Many thanks to Mark Kane for his guest blog, and it sounds like some of you will be making that fabulous tagine. Does anyone have any info about that beautiful Moroccon bread for Suzanne?
Many thanks to Nicole, Pierre, and my French class for helping me sort out the rules and lingo. And a final question for you: if anyone knows the rules for drinking coffee in Italy, I’d love to learn those and I'll bet lots of our readers would too.
12 thoughts on “Café Nation: Tune up your French Coffee Lingo”
I assume (but don’t know for sure) that all of this would take place with a real ceramic cup. In the U.S. it is nearly impossible to be served coffee in a real cup except at a sit-down restaurant.
Quick, easy, delicious…what more can we ask for….thank you…
Here in Des Moines, central USA par excellence,we have a real cafe (Zanzibar), owned and run by Mlle. Julie, who travels abroad to coffee congresses and comes back with sacks of Kenyan, Colombian, Arabian and beaucoup plus. So we have two forms of choice, preparation and beans, plus the pleasure of sitting with friends amid people at other small round tables sitting with friends, or laptops or books while roasting beans crackle on the other side of the counter. France no doubt has its cozy counterparts. Bravo Julie!
About Moroccan bread, here’s a good introduction: http://moroccanfood.about.com/od/breadandrice/r/Wheat_bread.htm
Hi
Being a non cook , I love your recipes that call for ingredients that I already have in my pantry. Franco-American Chocolates were easy and good. While forming them they got a little dry
and I added a tsp. of the cherry juice and it worked. They go well with American coffee.
THANKS,Lynn,for another wonderful blog,and especially (!) that delicious recipe (YUM!)
I remember during one of our first trips to Paris, the waiter made our cafe au lait a lasting memory for us by simultaneously pouring the coffee and hot milk (one pot in each hand!) into our cups. Quite a show!
What a great memory!(Hopefully,more of them to follow!)
Bon journee!!
…do you mean espresso coffee? I can’t find eXpresso anywhere – I know the original Italian is eSpresso coffee….and I love it. An invigorating shot/pick-me-up. Is eXpresso the American term for it? thx!!
I love this article and will save it for my next (sooner rather than later) trip to France. Can’t wait!!!
When I was growing up there was a cafe on the corner of the Rue de Berri and Champs. I would go in and the typical old school waiter would snarl—“aach cafe americain for the little boy” one day he said they had to buy a large coffee maker for the american tourists and with that he whipped out a real coffee mug and told me it would always be there for me and it was up until 1985.
Bonsoir Mrs. Southernfriedfrench, Your recommendations for how to drink that wonderful coffee in France is most enlightening – merci beaucoup! However, no matter how much I love you, I feel you are attacking my American Navy ways of drinking coffee! I will endeavor to change my coffee-drinking habit but expect I will need help as I am a weak American male and know change is difficult. Merci beaucoup for your help, Love and hugs, Montelle
I love coffee, coffee terms, and this coffee post! And what could be better, alongside one’s “kawa” than chocolate-covered corn flakes? Merci, Lynn! (Jean-Marc and I love our Nespresso maker, too! We’ve even lugged it along with us on vacation….)
I LOVE my Nespresso machine!! I got it after my grape picking trip to Provence in 2009, where I met Jean-Marc and Kristin (see the post above) and I’d have to say it’s the BEST and easiest way to get a proper espresso, can be purchased online at Amazon.com and the pods are direct from Nespresso (online)
I lived for years in Spain (and I know France well, too). In both countries, coffee is served AFTER the dessert, and when I moved to America, I was very surprised to see coffee served BEFORE the dessert. It seems wrong; coffee just doesn’t go with, say, a fruit-based dessert. It is too strongly flavored.