Now I am living in suburb south of Paris, I have a job, and, what would be most impressive to my younger self, I speak French (passably)! My primary work is in teaching English to businesspeople and university students. (I also now teach Math and IT at the French branch of an American University.)
This has led me to meet a cross-section of French people, and invariably one of their first questions is, "What do you miss from home?" Well, of course I miss my family (I do see them as often as we can all arrange!), but that's not really what they're asking about. They want to know what I like about life in France, what I miss about life in the US, and what the differences are. I usually tell them, "Well, I kind of miss Dr. Pepper when I'm here, and I miss Camembert when I'm there."
I usually have to explain what Dr. Pepper is, but then they laugh. Then I add, "You know, in the US, quiche is considered 'fancy'." They stare at me disbelievingly. They refuse to believe. They say, "But, it's just quiche!" And I say "Yes, but it has a French name. In the US, everything French has a fancy image about it. You know you are in a fancy restaurant, or at least a restaurant that is trying to be fancy, when they serve quiche." They laugh, and I think they usually don't believe me fully. After all, in France quiche is... well... it's just quiche! We have it maybe once a week. It's fast and easy to prepare. There are thousands of variations, but the basic recipe is dead simple. It's what you cook when you're too busy to do a real meal, so you whip together a quiche. You cook it to use up leftover vegetables or meat. It's comfort food. It's like pizza to Italians or meatloaf to us.
Do you like omelets? Do you like pie? How about an omelet pie?
So what's the deal? Why do we think of quiche as a kind of fancy-shmancy thing? I think it has to do with a flawed perception of French culture as elitist. Do they have their 'elites'? Sure, but they have their 'regular people' too. I'm not even sure I know how to define those two groups reliably, but however you do it, France has both. They're not trying to be fancy when they say something in French, they're just talking.
One of the first things I learned to cook here was quiche. Here's the recipe I use:
1 pre-made pie shell
2 eggs
About 2 cups of milk
3 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons instant mashed potatoes (optional: this is my own secret ingredient! It makes the pie fluff up nicely)
1 handful shredded cheese (I use 'Emmental', which sounds really fancy but is a very common type of cheese here that you can buy pre-shredded at the store. You could probably use Mozzarella or Cheddar and it would work fine.)
2 slices ham, diced
optional: salt and pepper to taste
Crack the eggs, add the milk, whisk in the flour and potato powder(you can use a fork), toss in the rest. Unroll the pie crust into a standard 9-inch pie pan and dump the filling in. Cook in the oven for 20 minutes at 425 degrees.
After this there are countless variations. The one I made today included 2 shredded carrots and a leek (A sort of giant green onion, found in the 'Fancy European Vegetable' section of your grocery store. In France it's in the 'vegetable' section.) Add a bit of milk if necessary so your mixture stays just a bit liquidy (this is a technical French cooking term).
The result:
