What Are Kids Really Eating in Paris School Cafeterias?

What does a typical Paris school lunches look like? I looked at the official menus from six public elementary schools across the city during the first week back at school.

It’s la rentrée in Paris. After the long summer break, children are back in their classrooms — and back in the school cafeteria.

I share a lot of French school lunches, but this time I wanted to do something slightly different. Rather than showing one particularly interesting or impressive meal, I went looking to see what Paris school lunches were actually being offered during their first week back at school.

The menus aren’t hard to find. These are all menus from Paris public elementary schools. They’re published by the Caisses des écoles, and many are also posted outside school gates.

I chose six menus from six different Paris arrondissements: the 3rd, 9th, 11th, 15th, 17th and 18th.

So, what was for lunch?

For a complete overview of the French school lunch system, see → French School Lunches: How They Work Today.

One of the school lunch menus posted outside a Paris public elementary school.

Paris 3rd arrondissement

Starter: Organic tomato salad with Gouda cubes and vinaigrette
Main course: Alaskan pollock with Basque-style sauce
Vegetarian option: Organic omelette
Side dish: Zucchini and potato purée
Dessert: Organic apple cake

Paris 9th arrondissement

Starter: Organic tomato and chickpea salad
Main course: Organic sautéed beef with carrot and onion sauce
Side dish: French fries
Cheese: Organic Brie
Dessert: Organic grapes

Yes, French fries make an appearance in French school cafeterias too.

Paris 11th arrondissement

Starter: Organic cucumber and mozzarella with organic olive oil
Main course: Veal blanquette
Vegetarian option: White bean blanquette
Side dish: Pilaf rice
Cheese/dairy: Farmhouse plain yogurt or fromage frais
Dessert: Organic pear or organic banana

Paris 15th arrondissement

Starter: Melon
Main course: Veal sauté, tajine-style
Side dish: Organic couscous semolina
Cheese: Goat cheese
Dessert: Apple and strawberry compote

Paris 17th arrondissement

Starter: Green salad
Main course: Margherita pizza
Cheese/dairy: Organic fromage blanc with honey
Dessert: Organic seasonal fruit

Paris 18th arrondissement

Starter: Organic lamb’s lettuce and beet salad with feta and organic balsamic vinaigrette
Main course: Beef sauté with shallot sauce
Vegetarian option: Organic scrambled eggs
Side dish: Pasta gratin
Cheese: Organic young Cantal
Dessert: Organic white peach

What stood out to me

Looking at the six Paris school lunch menus together is more interesting to me than focusing on any single dish.

There’s plenty of variety. In just these six lunches, children encounter tomatoes, chickpeas, cucumber, zucchini, melon, green salad, beetroot and lamb’s lettuce. Main courses range from fish, beef and veal to omelette, beans, pizza and scrambled eggs.

Cheese and dairy appear in all sorts of forms too: Gouda, Brie, mozzarella, goat cheese, Cantal, yogurt and fromage blanc. Fruit appears repeatedly, whether fresh, seasonal or made into compote.

And these aren’t menus filled only with foods that might seem particularly “French” to an outsider. There are French fries, pizza and pasta alongside veal blanquette, beet salad with feta, fish with Basque-style sauce and beef with shallot sauce.

That’s something I see again and again in French school cafeterias: familiar foods sit alongside foods children may not choose for themselves.

But do the children actually eat all of this?

This is probably the question I get asked most often when I share French school menus.

The answer is: not necessarily.

French children can be picky eaters too. Some will love the beet salad and leave the Cantal. Another child might eat the pasta gratin and refuse the starter. A child who happily eats veal blanquette one day may turn their nose up at fish the next.

What interests me isn’t that every child eats everything.

It’s that these foods are offered.

A child doesn’t have to love beetroot, goat cheese, chickpeas or zucchini the first time they encounter it. School lunch simply gives them another opportunity to see it, taste it and become familiar with it.

And when you look at menus from different parts of Paris rather than at one carefully selected lunch, you can see that this isn’t about one exceptional school cafeteria.

Six arrondissements. Six Paris school lunches. One ordinary first week back.

And yes, this really is what was for lunch.

Read More

👉 How much do parents pay for French school lunch?

👉 How nutritious are French school lunches?

👉 How I became fascinated by French school lunches

👉 Why French kids aren’t picky eaters

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