French cuisine is known for its use of a great variety of products, especially ones that cannot be found very easily outside of France.

If, for example, beef and chicken are cooked pretty much around the world, you don’t always find duck, rabbit, guinea-fowl, or even less likely, pigeon, hare or wild boars, deer, etc. Not to mention a large number of fish, shell-fish, “fruits de mer,” frogs, or snails. And even with animals that can be found everywhere, very few countries cook certain pieces and cuts such as the intestines (andouillette), liver, kidneys (rognons), blood (boudin noir), thyroid (ris-de-veau), etc., or serve meat raw, such as steak tartare.

The “typically French” menu, therefore, is one that you could rarely find elsewhere. It assumes that you are open to the unknown, and that you are an adventurous eater!