The French are notorious for known to lean toward consuming beef on the raw side, if not entirely raw (steak tartare), and if you’d like your steak um, cooked, you’ll be out of luck in France. Sometimes I ask for something bien cuit (well done) much to the cringing embarrassment of my French company and to the chagrin of the waiter, who, without fail, will roll zee eyes. (Puh-lease tell me why bien cuit even exists as a choice if people aren’t supposed to ask for it??!) I actually don’t like my steak well done, I like it medium rare, but the scales tip a whole ‘nother way in France (like, everything is RAW) and so if I order something well done, if I’m lucky, I’ll get something to my liking: medium rare.

A couple of days ago at a restaurant when my sweetie ordered a steak with pepper sauce (there’s no shortage of the omnipresent steak with pepper sauce in France), he expected the waiter to ask how he wanted it cooked. Instead the waiter, strangely giving him only 2 choices asks, “Bleu ou Saignant?” (Bleu means practically raw after having been faintly cooked for literally 2 seconds in a pan, saignant is cooked ever so slightly longer than bleu but is still bloody rare) Pause. As I murmur under my breath ewwww, he answers, “Neither.”

Standing back, the waiter’s eyes widen, as if gasps were coming from his eyelids.

He completes his statement and adds that he wants his steak, “à point.” (this is “rare” to me but medium rare to French people.)

The waiter exhaled as if relieved.

***

While we’re on the subject here are some translations of beef parts to help you while ordering steak in French restaurants:

bavette d’aloyau – London broil, skirt, hanger
bavette de flanchet – flank steak
châteaubriand (or cœur de filet) – chateaubriand
entrecôte – rib-eye steak or rib steak
faux-filet (or contre-filet) – sirloin strip, sirloin, New York steak
filet (or tournedo) – filet, tournedo, filet mignon
filet mignon – filet mignon
rumsteck (or pavé) – top round, top sirloin, London broil

[photo courtesy of Tom Harpel]