The Food That Helped Ina Garten Fall In Love With French Cuisine

Ina Garten is a well-known icon of the culinary scene and a reliable go-to for tips that help up our cooking game, but there are still parts of Garten's influential experiences that are obscure to the average person. As described in her memoir "Be Ready When the Luck Happens," Garten's experience with French sandwiches helped her fall in love with French cuisine.

The French sandwiches Garten enjoyed were entirely different from the expectations of a sandwich in the United States; instead of piling on the ingredients, French sandwiches were often composed of small amounts of ham, cheese, and Dijon mustard or butter layered into a baguette. "The texture, the flavors — the delicacy of it all is perfect," Garten writes in her book, highlighting her fondness for this type of sandwich. The sandwich Garten describes in her memoir is both simple and timeless, as can be expected from a remarkable baguette sandwich.

What Ina Garten was doing before becoming a chef was remarkably different from the legacy she has created in the culinary world; it is hard to imagine a nuclear budget analyst falling in love with and exploring France for the delicious and memorable pieces of French cuisine. Her descriptions of meals enjoyed in France highlight the simplicity of the food; a memorable dinner can be as simple as cheese, fruit, and roasted chicken.

Similarly, the sandwich that helped Garten fall in love with French cuisine is not a specific sandwich from a single place. "I wish I could remember the names of the places where we stopped for a snack or a coffee, but we could literally go anywhere — a market stall, one of a dozen little shops, or a concession at a gas station — and the food was always delicious," Garten writes. C'est simple!