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British produce: the best in France

The battle between French and British food has moved out of the kitchen and on to farms - and the British are still winning, says James Ramsden
Stilton cheese
Stilton is 'well above roquefort' according to French food writer Valerie Berry. Photograph: Michael Paul/Getty Images/StockFood

Last week environment secretary, Owen Paterson, put Gallic noses out of joint by failing to pitch up in Paris, where he was supposed to be leading a trade delegation to flog British "fizz and fromage". If that seems like something of a coals-to-Newcastle move then perhaps it's worth reconsidering, because a tectonic shift is occurring in cross-channel food politics.

Hitherto the battle between British and French food has tended to be fought in the kitchen. Are London restaurants better than those in Paris? Has regional French food gone downhill? Do Brits cook more in the home than the French? It's been a battle won latterly by Team GB, and we've exploited every opportunity to remind our neighbours that we're cooking better food than they are.

Where the battle hasn't been fought so much is on the beaches, in the fields, and in the dairies. I remember AA Gill soliloquising, as is his wont, about French butter at the London Restaurant Festival's Big Debate while arguing against the motion that French food was a spent force. Anthony Bourdain also highlights the "rich, cheesy Normandy butter" in Kitchen Confidential, and recalls, misty-eyed, the oyster in the Gironde that kindled his obsession with food. Even Nigella, who recently referred to France as "that irritating country you have to drive through to get to Italy", conceded that their bread and butter were worthy of note.

It has always been a given that when it comes to produce the French wipe the floor with us. Their cheeses, meat, seafood, wine and cider have long been far superior to ours. But, stone the crows, British food exports across the channel have doubled since 2000, even before Paterson's big push. The country that gave us roquefort, brie, and la vache qui rit is now buying our stilton and cheddar, guzzling scotch whisky by the hogshead, and even drinking some of our very accomplished sparkling wines. Even more surprisingly in this post-BSE landscape, they're also buying our beef.

Could it really be that the quality of our produce is outstripping its venerated French counterparts? French food writer and stylist Valerie Berry certainly thinks so. "There's no comparison. English cheeses are just amazing. I often bring some back to France and my friends are always like 'wow'. Stilton is a unique product, and well above roquefort, I truly believe that. Then there's Wiltshire ham, Gower potatoes, beef – miles better than charolais or limousin – I could go on."

Nonsense, says Jim Fisher, who runs Cook in France in the Dordogne. "The French are so much more in tune with seasonality, as well as being more willing to deal with the icky' bits that Brits avoid. They have much more understanding of the food on their plates and how it got there, and the weather is better."

Does the food actually taste better, though? "Definitely, particularly at local markets. In Sarlat you can buy produce that the paysan has pulled out of the ground that very morning."

It's a familiar story but it's less and less convincing. While in the UK farmers' markets continue to multiply, in France they are being infested by pragmatic wholesalers who know that, ultimately, nobody is going to notice if the leek they are eating came from the next farm or the next country.

And if reports are to be believed, that next country is increasingly likely to be the UK. Whether or not this spike in exports is merely down to a surge in expats is really neither here nor there. We've shown that we can cook better food than our neighbours, now it's time we appreciated that we can produce better too.

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