Frozen foods reheated, is it common in European eateries nowadays?

In a recent post regarding food in Spain, there was a comment that in
lower priced restaurants the food is NOT actually prepared in house,
but rather that it is factory or home made, frozen foods that are
reheated and then served

Lower priced chain restaurants do that in this country as well. It saves labor costs, increases profit margins, and maintains consistency. You get what you pay for;)

I can see Spain having many restaurants that serve frozen foods. In Spain, however, the prices are dirt cheap in most cafes outside of the major cities.

In Italy they have the same problem but the restaurants serving frozen foods charge you as if it were good food. The way to get good food in Italy is to get away from the tourist zone and get a recommendation from a local. The price will be virtually identical either way.

These are not guarantees, but I'm encouraged when I see fresh ingredients displayed in the front of the restaurant (like fish or seasonal mushrooms) and if the menu is handwritten and truly seems to change frequently. Maybe I can't tell a previously-frozen fish from a fresh one, but some people can. (It's also possible to find "chalkboard" menus in touristy places like Venice that are just as permanent as those laminated in plastic.) Many traditional braised and stewed dishes that take a long time to cook would have to be refrigerated and reheated even when made in-house, which also makes them easy to outsource.

Actually you don't

It was a joke.

I understand that this is standard practice for restaurants in the US. Google-up "sous vide" for info. The upside is that it speeds up the cooking and serving process and we all know that in the US, people like to speed through dinners and restaurants like to turn tables as much as possible.

I've visited a local wholesale restaurant supply facility that is where most small restaurants go to get their supples and you can see just about everything you can think of, frozen and ready for re-heating.

And of course on obligatory shout out to my favorite portlanda episode on this topic. Fast forward to :22

Hilarious! Are the hazelnuts local...his name was Colin, woodland raised.

Frankly, as long as the food doesn't taste like it was frozen and doesn't make me physically ill, I couldn't give less of a damn. And really, even most non-chain restaurants will pre-prepare various sauces, stocks and soups and freeze the excess. Does it really make a difference if this occurs on-site or at another location? I'm not sure I even want to regularly consume from a food distribution network where freezing is not standard practice... salmonella is a real thing, not just some boogey-man they made up to sell refrigerators.

In Germany, one of the calling cards of a good Schnitzel purveyor is that you can hear the sound of pork being hammered flat emanating from the kitchen. So I guess that could provide some reassurance. Of course, that won't exclude the possibility that the sauce (if you order a variety that comes with sauce) was frozen and reheated.

I think there is a difference between preparing certain sauces and soups ahead of time and just reheating a dish made off-site. The common practice that I have heard about in Spain is that most paella is made off-site, frozen, purchased by a restaurant, then just re-heated. To me that is the equivalent of going to a pizza restaurant and having them heat my store-bought frozen pizza. I don't mind heating a frozen pizza at home, but that is not why I go out to eat.

And yes, many bakeries and pastry shops sell goods made off-site. Again, that is a different story to me as those items are not heated and it makes little difference where they are made if they are fresh.

It appears that there is fairly wide acceptance of frozen for home use in France:

https://www.thecitycook.com/articles/2015-10-30-picard

Thanks for all comments and insights. I understand the need for speeding up service at restaurants, and maybe the bit about hygiene ( decreasing salmonella breakouts), but what are we actually paying for when we eat at restaurants, and I mean real restaurants, not fast food places? We pay for the service, the location ( sitting down at a table in a decent location), the ambience, and most importantly, the food. So, am presuming that the food served is made from scratch, not some ready made packet from a Food service provider, that is heated up and served with some fresh garnish. I thought in the old world, foods were still freshly made. It makes me sad to think that it may no longer be so.

We pay for the service, the location ( sitting down at a table in a decent location And there you have it. At popular locations, the same economics apply in Europe as in the US. The competition is cut-throat, and there's a large premium to pay for the real estate. If you really want food from scratch, it probably won't come with as nice (or famous) of a view.

Act shocked, but it happens in the States too.

Taco Del Mar among a few others don't have "kitchens" in back so much as "reheating facilities."

I know it happens here in the States a lot. But it always felt that in the States people wanted fast service and consistent (familiar) food, therefore there are a lot more fast food eateries (franchises) Technology ( refrigeration, microwave ovens, sous vide cookery) have definitely changed things in the food industry, particularly less food poisoning, but still it hurts to realize food is not freshly cooked.

If food is served by just reheating/ finalized baking/ roasting/ frying/ steaming, whatever, is that what restaurants serve when a big tour group such as a RS tour group goes for a group dinner? I mean, there are up to 30 guests to be served at once. No wonder a lot of those dinners were not that memorable in a good sense, in fact some were memorable because they were sub par. Now eating during a tour no longer seems that appealing any more. Sad.

As I said in the Spain post, in France most of it is quite good because people traditionally have high standards for home cooking. Also, much of the factory bread that is finished off in a bakery has great crust and insides. Much of the fish soup on the coast is made in huge factory vats. The results are delicious. Snails come frozen from Bulgaria, etc. If you want housemade, you have to seek out the restaurants and pay a higher price.

The giveaway is when a place serves all grilled meat and duck confit--all quick cooked, or the same menu every day of several fish dishes in sauce as well as all the well known stews such as beef burgundy, chicken in reisling, snails, in garlic butter, etc.

Have you ever eaten at Panera, here in the States? Everything there, except their fresh salads, comes to them frozen. They do bake there, but they don't cook.

One thing I have often thought of that would help the RS tours. At many stops of two or more nights there is one tour dinner and one night on your own. If you broke the tour into two groups, the first group would go to the tour dinner the first night and the second group on the second night. This would mean the tour could now go to smaller restaurants and a group of 15 is not so big that you have to get "previously prepared" meals. Now there would be a lot to the mechanics like switching people between groups at the following cites. Just an idea.

Remember that movements like Slow Food started in Europe to preserve food ways that the founders thought to be endangered and to need public attention. It was not a sign that everything was going great. When food writers celebrate these philosophies, it's easy for readers to focus on that piece of the picture, especially for Americans who don't know the European context or don't know that stores like Picard Surgeles co-exist with the farmers markets in France. (I have no beef with Picard; have only driven past them.)

I recently had lamb shanks in a delicious wine sauce from Picard. :) Their salmon in puff pastry is worthy of serving company.

Now some of you had to drag tour meals into the discussion. I don't know the prep methods at the hundreds of different restaurants that RS Tours use, but can say that I've had a lot of good meals. Some places spend all day preparing just for us. Some serve a lot more than 28 people every day and take it in their stride. Our groups are small enough that we don't often patronize the same restaurants used by tour groups of 50 or 100 people (horrors!). Since we usually order ahead and dine early (by local standards), the restaurant has the opportunity to prep and be organized.

Laura, that is good to know about RS tour dinners. Who chooses the restaurants, the guides or central management? Just wondering.

From what I've seen, using pre-cooked or frozen food is common not only in Europe but also here at home. It seems to be only the high priced gourmet restaurants that tend to prepare most of their food from scratch.

A few examples.....

• Anyone that serves French Fries these days uses frozen product, as there's very little wastage. They can put as many as needed in the deep fryer to meet orders and none goes to waste. I found that to be the case even in Greece where fries were served with Souvlaki rather than the rice & potatoes that are standard here.
• On a visit to Portland a few years ago, I was chatting with someone that used to work at one of the large Italian chain restaurants. To see their TV commercials, one would think everything is freshly prepared. Apparently that's not the case, as some of the items are frozen and "boil-in-a-bag" and he said the Chefs sometimes sit on the order for a few minutes to give the customer the impression that it was freshly made.
• Even with the better Italian restaurants, using parboiled pasta is very common even if they make their own pasta every day. That allows them to get orders out in a timely fashion.
• One of the food stores here has developed a very profitable business selling the types of frozen items that would be used in restaurants, such as pre-made breaded Chicken Cordon Bleu, Chicken Cutlets, etc. Take them out of the freezer, throw them in the deep fryer for a few minutes, add some garnish and the meal is ready.

Using frozen or pre-made foods is good for the bottom line, so I suspect restaurants all over use the same methods. There are exceptions though, and there are a few restaurants I patronize here where food is freshly prepared.

News reports in Paris have confirmed that the majority of food served in the majority of cafes and restaurants is not prepared from scratch, and is either frozen, canned or made from instant powders. The reason for this is the economy - paying a (probable) illegal person to push buttons on a microwave costs a lot less than paying a trained cook.

Price doesn't seem to matter much - several small restaurants I patronize do cook everything from scratch - you can see the chef at work - and a 3-course meal costs between 28 to 35 EU.
The "fait maison" attempt has been a failure from the start. There are all ways to get around this - the law is so loosely worded that there is a whole lot of room for interpretation, which nobody really expected.

Generally, if a menu lists more than 3 entrees and 3 main dishes, it's a dead giveaway that there is pre-prepared food in some form in the kitchen.
If you walk down the block in most neighborhoods in Paris, it's easy to see what was on sale at "Metro" or "Rungis" that week, because every place will feature the same menu items.

If reheating frozen food is a concern, how about what's being cooked, reheated or otherwise?

Mislabeled fish:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/02/21/172589997/one-in-three-fish-sold-at-restaurants-and-grocery-stores-is-mislabeled

Tampered olive oil:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-overtime-how-to-buy-olive-oil/

Faked truffles:

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/chinese-fakes-are-being-passed-off-as-the-real-thing-but-this-time-its-800kg-truffles-2014-3

Etc.

Fish and olive oil -- 2 of the worst offenders in the fraud department.
And here's a link to what I consider the quintessential "authentic" French restaurant, fait maison, not far from the Geneva airport. It's worth staying in the village the night before flying out, as long as it's not a closing night: http://www.chez-arno.fr/.

The "French Waiter" scene in National Lampoon's European Vacation makes reference to the type of food being used in restaurants in Paris, where they show the cooks unboxing a bunch of TV dinners, with a bank of microwave ovens on the wall behind them. I won't post the YouTube video of that here, as it contains some "colourful language".

If you want a true meal prepared without frozen sauces, etc. may I suggest signing up for a cooking class? We took a wonderful class in Rome. The first question our chef asked after our intros was what we had for dinner the night before. Then he proceeded to tell most of us, "frozen, frozen, etc." because we didn't order ingredients that were in season, grown locally, or were menu items local to that town. We came away from that class, not only with a fantastic meal & experience, but wiser to understand what to order....and to head away from the main tourist restaurants.

Jean,

That is an excellent suggestion. We also took a cooking class in Rome, as part of a RS Rome tour, but I don't recall our cooking teacher talking about the ubiquitous use of frozen prepared foods. She may have taught us to use in season and local foods. One thing that vividly comes to mind from that cooking class is the plum sauce she provided to go with the pannacotta that she taught us to make? She had made it with FRESH plums from her (own) plum tree. Then she says if you don't have fresh plums, to use CANNED plums. Of course not everyone has a plum tree with fresh plums, so we would have to follow her suggestion.

I was just thinking about Jean's comment of ordering foods that are in season and are local ,and it brought memories of the fresh food markets that were seen in Istanbul, and Barcelona (la Boqueria and another large city food market near the cathedral). I do not recall seeing such markets in the other large cities like London, Paris , Madrid, and Rome. Probably because these are capitals and much bigger in populations? These latter cities were more likely to have supermarkets rather than open stall markets. Even though they also had quite a selection of fresh vegetables and fruits , they didn't appear "local". Maybe there is a correlation between fresh food market cities/towns and restaurants with made from scratch menus. The other smaller towns I have been to are Florence, Cordoba, Toledo and Granada, and do not remember actually seeing a fresh produce market, although I felt the food eaten in those cities felt made from scratch. Any additional comments on this?

I can't speak for the other large cities, but Paris has lots of outdoor food markets, with plenty of local (as well as non-local) products. Maybe not "local" as in "Grown in Paris," but from the countryside.

Again, there is a huge difference between ingredients being frozen and supplied to a restaurant for thawing and mixing into a recipe and a restaurant obtaining a pre-prepared meal that was frozen, and all they have to do is thaw, heat and serve.

Liked Emma's story of Mr. Smith and the raspberries. There is nothing wrong with freezing the surplus berries for later use. I do that with blue berries when they are available.

Oh Emma, I love your story! Plus I got a flat of raspberries from the local farmers market this morning....lol.

This is a really interesting discussion! I'll have to keep it in mind on my next RS tour.

There are fresh markets all over Roma, Venezia, Firenze and other large cities, but you need to find them. Except for the Campo dei Fiori market, most are not on the tourist path.

I think you would need to expand beyond frozen to outside prep as well. It happens more than you think, mostly due to time and cost. Some examples:

• The chocolate croissants as well as most pastries you see nearly everywhere, including in bakeries, are frozen, baked on-site. Even some breads and other items. Do they still taste great? yeah Is this a bad thing? well, maybe a "from-scratch" would offer some different choices, maybe better, but probably more expensive, maybe not better.
• Pub Food: Many pubs certainly cook on-site, but likely that steak and ale pie came ready made, either "fresh or Frozen", Lamb or Veal Shanks, likely pre-cooked off site or frozen. Chain Pubs (Weatherspoons, Nicholson, etc) have common menus so items can be prepared off-site or from frozen items and heated and assembled (with some cooking of items) on-site, Is this bad? If the food is tasty, good quality, and reasonably priced, then it is not so bad. The only problem I have with it is in eating at a variety of pubs, you are invariably presented with the same options. I do like Fuller's Pubs though, a chain, but they have a higher standard of food service, the Chef has more say in the menu and the dishes vary much more. Do they use ready made items or frozen? I would bet some (Veggies, pastries, desserts?)

In the end, I do not think you can escape it (If you search, even Paris has had quite a tussle over this subject) I do not always object, especially for some items. I am pickier about fish, usually ask or will check into it more, but I also realize that if I want fresher, prepared on-site meals, I probably will need to do some checking and I will need to pay a bit above average.

If the food is tasty, good quality, and reasonably priced, then it is not so bad.

AMEN!

In Paris, to be listed as a boulangerie, by law, you have to make and bake your bread, croissants, and other products on site, not at some distant location. If you look at Eric Keyser, he has multiple boulangeries in the city and each has to separately make their own stuff. So in Paris, if you go to a "boulangerie", at least the stuff is made on site. It may not taste the greatest, but it's not shipped frozen.
As far as restaurants, I visit websites from local foodies, who know which restaurants actually make their food at the restaurant. It also helps to have an open kitchen where you can see them preparing the food. When we ate at Chez Dumonet, we sat in the back of the restaurant, near the kitchen door. Some people don't want to sit there. We thought it was great. We could actually see them preparing the meals, including ours. No microwave in sight. At Creperie Josselin, you can see them making the crepes since the kitchen is in the front of the restaurant.
Again, check the local foodie websites. They know where the good stuff is and they often know the owners and chefs.

My wife and I mostly eat at humble places where we can get a sandwich or salad, and do not seek a transcendent dining experience when traveling. I doubt whether they froze the lettuce or the bread beforehand, but if it tastes o.k. I am not going to worry about it. I think the comment you were referring to was about Paella, and I used to love Paella in Spain back when I could eat that many carbs. A little disappointed to hear that it was probably frozen, but oh well. These days we are too tired from the days adventures to think too hard about it. We are just not that willing to spend a boatload of money (say, as much as we spent on our hotel) for a good meal. Much happier with a hearty salad and a beer as on our recent Ireland trip and a $50 bill instead of $120. It's hard enough to find a great restaurant that offers reasonable value at home, since the travel planning falls on me, it's just not something I worry about that much.

The vast majority of the vendors at the outdoor markets in Paris buy produce from Rungis, the enormous warehouse facility near Paris which sells everything - fresh, frozen, you-name-it. This is also where much of the items sold in supermarkets come from, too.
There is no "farmers' market" as such in Paris. A couple of times a year, there are "Marches des producteurs de pays" - small markets set up over a couple of days which feature people who actually produce the items they sell. You can Google this to see if one will be on while you're in Paris.
The vendors are supposed to include information about where the produce originated - France, Belgium, Spain - but some of them cheat or don't include anything at all, which is illegal.
If you want to find "producteurs", it will be difficult - there are only a few of them per weekly market. These are the representatives of the co-ops which actually grow, pick and pack their own produce.
The "bio" (organic) stands will have produce which can come from anywhere, so examine the signs carefully if you want local products.

Thank you Chexbres for the reality-check. We have a romanticized image of European food and cooking.

Chexbres is right--the produce at small shops and open air markets comes from Rungis.Those vendors didn't dig around in the soil. However, it's picked riper and has shorter distance to ship than the green hard rocks that's sold for fruit in US markets. That's why it tastes better--except for the stuff shipped from Spanish and Netherland green houses. But even locals get confused. A neighbor in Burgundy swore by a certain poultry vendor, but I saw the EU markings on the eggs indicating that the hens were caged (3, I believe) and the brown spots had been painted on to look like chicken poop.

Have loved reading all the comments posted. Thank you all for your insights and postings on this subject so far as I look forward each day to see and read what you share with the rest of us.

I have to make an apology for saying that I did not see a fresh produce market in Paris, when I actually did. My daughters gently reminded me that at Rue Cler there was such a market when we stayed for the RS Paris tour. The stalls are lined alongside the street, and are even left empty on the days when there is no market. I had completely forgotten since we only walked through it and did not buy anything. I do remember the signs of the produce and whence they came from, just as above poster mentions. Compared to the number and scale of the street food markets seen in Istanbul, it was small in comparison, and it slipped my memory. It reminded me of a farmers market here in the US, instead of a huge area of food sellers.

Have you ever considered how much food it takes to feed 700 million people every day? That's just Europe. Joe the farmer can not keep up - the large scale food producers are a necessary evil unless and until the world reverts to all growing/buying local. I'd settle for 100% organic & humane farming/meat industry. But I won't hold my breath.

Unless you raise it yourself it is hard to always know what you are getting.

But ya still gotta eat!

It breaks my heart to see people buying produce out-of-season, when they are just used to doing it at home in the supermarket. These products are either raised in sterile greenhouses or come from the other ends of the earth, and bear no resemblance to produce which is raised closer to Paris during the regular seasons. They will also be much more expensive.

Strawberries, asparagus, peaches, new potatoes, haricots verts - all these and more are worth waiting for when they appear when they are supposed to, in the outdoor markets or supermarkets.

Get them now, if you're lucky enough to be here.

I posted earlier about the Rome cooking class and will also share that I'm signed up for a croissant class in Paris this Fall. We definitely don't go to the high-end restaurants when we travel but enjoy a half-day class for the local food experience & equally the interactions with the locals.

I prefer stopping in grocery stores for most of our lunches - another way to eat fresh food and also see which foods people tend to prefer in each region.

Come visit Frankfurt or Mainz where local Farmers markets do exist. Nothing can come from more than 100 km away. Each stand has the name of the farm on it. You won't find oranges or avocados there.
The ones in Frankfurt are at the Konstablerwache on Thur. and Sat. and in Höchst on Tues. Fri. & Sat. The other Farmers markets often have local stands too.

http://www.hfm-frankfurt.de/wochenmaerkte.html

Whether it is goats cheese, lamb, honey, potatoes, cabbage, eggs, wine, or herbs, it is all local and seasonal.