Peasant food in 18th century France was nothing like our romantic notions today. People ate according to what was available in the region and according to season. There was more variety in the cities as merchants and traders brought different products. The diet of normal people in France consisted of mainly soups, stews, bread and dairy products, such as butter and cheese (from cow, sheep or goat).
Bread
Bread was a staple food in the regions. People ate up to a kilo of bread per day, since it was cheap. It was nothing like the traditional loaf we imagine when we see pain traditionnel in the bakery. In the fields, people grew whatever crops they could to make bread. It was hardly ever wheat bread, but a dark coloured bread made from rye, oat or buckwheat including the stems and chaff. It would be eaten with butter or sometimes with fat or olive oil.
Often flat cakes or gruel made from buckwheat, chestnut or corn were the most common food. Wheat and even rye were used to pay royalties or rent, or sold for export when it was allowed. Potato-farming was rare, but became more widespread over the course of the century.
Meat and fish
People did not eat a lot of meat. The citizens were not allowed to hunt in the lord’s forests or fish in his rivers. Pork, poultry or mutton were the most common meats. Pigs were the easiest to raise as they could be fed almost anything.
The poor also ate fish such as smoked herring or dried/salted cod, anchovies and sardines. Fish was only common near the coast as otherwise it had to be salted, (which was expensive too) in order to store well. Those with more money ate eel or perch or other fish.
Smollett says, The bourgeois of Boulogne have commonly soup and bouilli at noon,
and a roast, with a sallad, for supper; and at all their meals
there is a dessert of fruit. On meagre days they eat fish, omelettes, fried beans,
fricassees of eggs and onions.
Planting
Those that were able to had gardens. They grew cabbage, beets, beans, lentils, peas, carrots, potatoes, leeks, tomatoes, aubergines, turnips. In Provence, orange, lemon and olive trees were popular.
Spices were not used much in cooking. However, herbs such as rosemary, parsley and thyme were prolific for flavouring the bouillon (stock).
In times of dearth, they had to subsist on turnips, herbs, grass, lichens and moss. There were even reports of eating rats.
Festivals
On feast days sausage meat and wine were served or desserts like fat pancakes made with spices and almonds.
During Lent, eggs and meat were not allowed to be eaten for forty days.
Drinks
Drinks were normally water, but sometimes watered wine from grapes or apples. As well as wine, beer had been made by monasteries and nunneries in some parts of France since the 16th century.
Coffee and hot chocolate were fashionable drinks in Paris among the upper classes.
Some specialities
Nogaux – almond cakes
Hughes says, The genuine sort is as glutinous as pitch, and made in moulds, from whence it is cut like portable soup; and the makers at Montelimart, like the rusk-bakers of Kidderminster, have, I understand, refused a large sum for the receipt.
Confiture de menage – jam
Hughes states, Another of the good things of Provence, to which Miss Plumptre’s Tour introduced us, was the confiture de menage, or fruit boiled up with grape juice instead of sugar. This is a preserve which you meet with in most of the commonest inns, but which is so easily made and little esteemed, that they do not bring it without a particular order.
Peasant food in 18th century France was very different from what the bourgeois and nobles ate. It would have been all-consuming just thinking about where your next meal was coming from.
See also Researching 18th century France
Sources:
Hughes, John: Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone Made During the Year 1819, By John Hughes http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20891/20891-h/20891-h.htm
See, Henri: La France economique et sociale au XVIIIeme siècle, https://www.herodote.net/Textes/see_france_economie_XVIII.pdf
https://www.histoire-pour-tous.fr/histoire-de-france/3861-agriculture-et-demographie-au-xviiieme-siecle.html
Young, Arthur: Travels in France by Arthur Young during the War Years 1787, 1788, 1789
Smollett, Tobias George: Travels through France and Italy, containing observations on character