text:
Fred Hoyle

Sir Fred Hoyle (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and was one of the authors of the influential B2FH paper. He also held controversial stances on other scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory (a term coined by him on BBC Radio) in favor of the "steady-state model", and his promotion of panspermia as the origin of life on Earth. He spent most of his working life at St John's College, Cambridge and served as the founding director of the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy at Cambridge.

Hoyle also wrote science fiction novels, short stories and radio plays, co-created television serials, and co-authored twelve books with his son, Geoffrey Hoyle.

Early life
Hoyle was born near Bingley in Gilstead, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. His father Ben Hoyle was a violinist and worked in the wool trade in Bradford, and served as a machine gunner in the First World War. His mother, Mabel Pickard, had studied music at the Royal College of Music in London and later worked as a cinema pianist. Hoyle was educated at Bingley Grammar School and read mathematics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. As a youth, he sang in the choir at the local Anglican church.

In 1936, Hoyle shared the Mayhew Prize with George Stanley Rushbrooke.

Career
In late 1940, Hoyle left Cambridge to go to Portsmouth to work for the Admiralty on radar research, for example devising a method to get the altitude of incoming aeroplanes. He was also put in charge of countermeasures against the radar-guided guns found on the Graf Spee after its scuttling in the River Plate. Britain's radar project was a large-scale operation, and was probably the inspiration for the large British project in Hoyle's novel The Black Cloud. Two colleagues in this war work were Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold, and the three had many discussions on cosmology. The radar work involved several trips to North America, where he took the opportunity to visit astronomers. On one trip to the US, he learned about supernovae at Caltech and Mount Palomar and, in Canada, the nuclear physics of plutonium implosion and explosion, noticed some similarity between the two and started thinking about supernova nucleosynthesis. He had an intuition at the time "I will make a name for myself if this works out" (he published his prescient and groundbreaking paper in 1954). He also formed a group at Cambridge exploring stellar nucleosynthesis in ordinary stars and was bothered by the paucity of stellar carbon production in existing models. He noticed that one existing process would be made a billion times more productive if the carbon-12 nucleus had a resonance at 7.7 MeV, but nuclear physicists at the time omitted such an observed value. On another trip, he visited the nuclear physics group at Caltech, spent a few months of sabbatical there and persuaded them against their scepticism to find the Hoyle state in carbon-12, from which a full theory of stellar nucleosynthesis was developed, co-authored by Hoyle and members of the Caltech group.

In 1945, after the war ended, Hoyle returned to Cambridge University as a lecturer at St John's College, Cambridge (where he had been a Fellow since 1939). Hoyle's Cambridge years, 1945–1973, saw him rise to the top of world astrophysics theory, on the basis of a startling originality of ideas covering a wide range of topics. In 1958, Hoyle was appointed Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy in Cambridge University. In 1967, he became the founding director of the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy (subsequently renamed the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge), where his innovative leadership quickly led to this institution becoming one of the premier groups in the world for theoretical astrophysics. In 1971, he was invited to deliver the MacMillan Memorial Lecture to the Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders in Scotland. He chose the subject "Astronomical Instruments and their Construction". Hoyle was knighted in 1972.

Although the occupant of two distinguished offices, by 1972 Hoyle had become unhappy with his life in Cambridge. A dispute over election to a professorial chair led to Hoyle resigning as Plumian professor in 1972. The following year he also resigned the directorship of the Institute. Explaining his actions, he later wrote: "I do not see any sense in continuing to skirmish on a battlefield where I can never hope to win. The Cambridge system is effectively designed to prevent one ever establishing a directed policy - key decisions can be upset by ill-informed and politically motivated committees. To be effective in this system one must for ever be watching one's colleagues, almost like a Robespierre spy system. If one does so, then of course little time is left for any real science."

After leaving Cambridge, Hoyle wrote several popular science and science fiction books, as well as presenting lectures around the world, partly to provide a means of support. Hoyle was still a member of the joint policy committee (since 1967), during the planning stage for the 150-inch Anglo-Australian Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales. He became chairman of the Anglo-Australian Telescope board in 1973, and presided at its inauguration in 1974 by Charles, Prince of Wales.

Decline and death
After his resignation from Cambridge, Hoyle moved to the Lake District and occupied his time with treks across the moors, writing books, visiting research centres around the world, and working on science ideas (that have been largely rejected). On 24 November 1997, while hiking across moorlands in west Yorkshire, near his childhood home in Gilstead, Hoyle fell into a steep ravine called Shipley Glen. He was located about 12 hours later by a party using search dogs. He was hospitalised for two months with a broken shoulder bone, and pneumonia and kidney problems, both resulting from hypothermia. Thereafter he entered a marked decline, suffering from memory and mental agility problems. In 2001, he suffered a series of strokes and died in Bournemouth on 20 August of that year.

Origin of nucleosynthesis
Hoyle authored the first two research papers ever published on synthesis of chemical elements heavier than helium by stellar nuclear reactions. The first of these in 1946 showed that cores of stars will evolve to temperatures of billions of degrees, much hotter than temperatures considered for thermonuclear origin of stellar power in main-sequence stars. Hoyle showed that at such high temperatures the element iron can become much more abundant than other heavy elements owing to thermal equilibrium among nuclear particles, explaining the high natural abundance of iron. This idea would later be called the eProcess. Hoyle's second foundational nucleosynthesis publication, published in 1954, showed that the elements between carbon and iron cannot be synthesized by such equilibrium processes. He attributed those elements to specific nuclear fusion reactions between abundant constituents in concentric shells of evolved massive, pre-supernova stars. This startlingly modern picture is the accepted paradigm today for the supernova nucleosynthesis of these primary elements. In the mid-1950s, Hoyle became the leader of a group of talented experimental and theoretical physicists who met in Cambridge: William Alfred Fowler, Margaret Burbidge, and Geoffrey Burbidge. This group systematized basic ideas of how all the chemical elements in our universe were created, with this now being a field called nucleosynthesis. Famously, in 1957, this group produced the B2FH paper (known for the initials of the four authors) in which the field of nucleosynthesis was organized into complementary nuclear processes. They added much new material on the synthesis of heavy elements by neutron-capture reactions, the so-called s process and the r process. So influential did the B2FH paper become that for the remainder of the twentieth century it became the default citation of almost all researchers wishing to cite an accepted origin for nucleosynthesis theory, and as a result, the path-breaking Hoyle 1954 paper fell into obscurity. Historical research in the 21st century has brought Hoyle's 1954 paper back to scientific prominence. Those historical arguments were first presented to a gathering of nucleosynthesis experts attending a 2007 conference at Caltech organized after the deaths of both Fowler and Hoyle to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of B2FH. Ironically the B2FH paper did not review Hoyle's 1954 supernova-shells attribution of the origin of elements between silicon and iron despite Hoyle's co-authorship of B2FH. Based on his many personal discussions with Hoyle Donald D. Clayton has attributed this seemingly inexplicable oversight in B2FH to the lack of proofreading by Hoyle of the draft composed at Caltech in 1956 by G.R. Burbidge and E.M. Burbidge.

The second of Hoyle's nucleosynthesis papers also introduced an interesting use of the anthropic principle, which was not then known by that name. In trying to work out the steps of stellar nucleosynthesis, Hoyle calculated that one particular nuclear reaction, the triple-alpha process, which generates carbon from helium, would require the carbon nucleus to have a very specific resonance energy and spin for it to work. The large amount of carbon in the universe, which makes it possible for carbon-based life-forms of any kind to exist, demonstrated to Hoyle that this nuclear reaction must work. Based on this notion, Hoyle therefore predicted the values of the energy, the nuclear spin and the parity of the compound state in the carbon nucleus formed by three alpha particles (helium nuclei), which was later borne out by experiment.

This energy level, while needed to produce carbon in large quantities, was statistically very unlikely to fall where it does in the scheme of carbon energy levels. Hoyle later wrote:

"Would you not say to yourself, 'Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.'"

His co-worker William Alfred Fowler eventually won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983 (with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar), but Hoyle's original contribution was overlooked by the electors, and many were surprised that such a notable astronomer missed out. Fowler himself in an autobiographical sketch affirmed Hoyle's pioneering efforts:

"The concept of nucleosynthesis in stars was first established by Hoyle in 1946. This provided a way to explain the existence of elements heavier than helium in the universe, basically by showing that critical elements such as carbon could be generated in stars and then incorporated in other stars and planets when that star 'dies'. The new stars formed now start off with these heavier elements and even heavier elements are formed from them. Hoyle theorized that other rarer elements could be explained by supernovas, the giant explosions which occasionally occur throughout the universe, whose temperatures and pressures would be required to create such elements."

Rejection of the Big Bang
While having no argument with the Lemaître theory (later confirmed by Edwin Hubble's observations) that the universe was expanding, Hoyle disagreed on its interpretation. He found the idea that the universe had a beginning to be pseudoscience, resembling arguments for a creator, "for it's an irrational process, and can't be described in scientific terms" (see Kalam cosmological argument). Instead, Hoyle, along with Thomas Gold and Hermann Bondi (with whom he had worked on radar in the Second World War), in 1948 began to argue for the universe as being in a "steady state" and formulated their Steady State theory. The theory tried to explain how the universe could be eternal and essentially unchanging while still having the galaxies we observe moving away from each other. The theory hinged on the creation of matter between galaxies over time, so that even though galaxies get further apart, new ones that develop between them fill the space they leave. The resulting universe is in a "steady state" in the same manner that a flowing river is—the individual water molecules are moving away but the overall river remains the same.

The theory was one alternative to the Big Bang which, like the Big Bang, agreed with key observations of the day, namely Hubble's red shift observations, and Hoyle was a strong critic of the Big Bang. He coined the term "Big Bang" on BBC radio's Third Programme broadcast on 28 March 1949. It was said by George Gamow and his opponents that Hoyle intended to be pejorative, and the script from which he read aloud was interpreted by his opponents to be "vain, one-sided, insulting, not worthy of the BBC". Hoyle explicitly denied that he was being insulting and said it was just a striking image meant to emphasize the difference between the two theories for the radio audience. In another BBC interview, he said, "The reason why scientists like the "Big Bang" is because they are overshadowed by the Book of Genesis. It is deep within the psyche of most scientists to believe in the first page of Genesis".

Hoyle had a famously heated argument with Martin Ryle of the Cavendish Radio Astronomy Group about Hoyle's steady state theory, which somewhat restricted collaboration between the Cavendish group and the Cambridge Institute of Astronomy during the 1960s.

Hoyle, unlike Gold and Bondi, offered an explanation for the appearance of new matter by postulating the existence of what he dubbed the "creation field", or just the "C-field", which had negative pressure in order to be consistent with the conservation of energy and drive the expansion of the universe. This C-field is the same as the later "de Sitter solution" for cosmic inflation, but the C-field model acts much slower than the de Sitter inflation model. They jointly argued that continuous creation was no more inexplicable than the appearance of the entire universe from nothing, although it had to be done on a regular basis. In the end, mounting observational evidence convinced most cosmologists that the steady-state model was incorrect and that the Big Bang theory agreed better with observations, although Hoyle continued to support and develop his theory. In 1993, in an attempt to explain some of the evidence against the steady-state theory, he presented a modified version called "quasi-steady state cosmology" (QSS), but the theory is not widely accepted.

The evidence that resulted in the Big Bang's victory over the steady-state model included discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation in the 1960s, and the distribution of "young galaxies" and quasars throughout the Universe in the 1980s indicate a more consistent age estimate of the universe. Hoyle died in 2001 having never accepted the validity of the Big Bang theory.

"How, in the big-bang cosmology, is the microwave background explained? Despite what supporters of big-bang cosmology claim, it is not explained. The supposed explanation is nothing but an entry in the gardener's catalogue of hypothesis that constitutes the theory. Had observation given 27 Kelvins instead of 2.7 Kelvins for the temperature, then 27 kelvins would have been entered in the catalogue. Or 0.27 Kelvins. Or anything at all."

Theory of gravity
Together with Narlikar, Hoyle developed a particle theory in the 1960s, the Hoyle–Narlikar theory of gravity. It made predictions that were roughly the same as Einstein's general relativity, but it incorporated Mach's Principle, which Einstein had tried but failed to incorporate in his theory. The Hoyle-Narlikar theory fails several tests, including consistency with the microwave background. It was motivated by their belief in the steady-state model of the universe.

Rejection of Earth-based abiogenesis
In his later years, Hoyle became a staunch critic of theories of abiogenesis to explain the origin of life on Earth. With Chandra Wickramasinghe, Hoyle promoted the hypothesis that the first life on Earth began in space, spreading through the universe via panspermia, and that evolution on Earth is influenced by a steady influx of viruses arriving via comets. His belief that comets had a significant percentage of organic compounds was well ahead of his time, as the dominant views in the 1970s and 1980s were that comets largely consisted of water-ice, and the presence of organic compounds was then highly controversial. Wickramasinghe wrote in 2003: "In the highly polarized polemic between Darwinism and creationism, our position is unique. Although we do not align ourselves with either side, both sides treat us as opponents. Thus we are outsiders with an unusual perspective—and our suggestion for a way out of the crisis has not yet been considered."

Hoyle and Wickramasinghe advanced several instances where they say outbreaks of illnesses on Earth are of extraterrestrial origins, including the 1918 flu pandemic, and certain outbreaks of polio and mad cow disease. For the 1918 flu pandemic, they hypothesized that cometary dust brought the virus to Earth simultaneously at multiple locations—a view almost universally dismissed by experts on this pandemic. In 1982, Hoyle presented Evolution from Space for the Royal Institution's Omni Lecture. After considering what he thought of as a very remote possibility of Earth-based abiogenesis he concluded:

"If one proceeds directly and straightforwardly in this matter, without being deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure of order must be the outcome of intelligent design. No other possibility I have been able to think of..."

Published in his 1982/1984 books Evolution from Space (co-authored with Chandra Wickramasinghe), Hoyle calculated that the chance of obtaining the required set of enzymes for even the simplest living cell without panspermia was one in 1040,000. Since the number of atoms in the known universe is infinitesimally tiny by comparison (1080), he argued that Earth as life's place of origin could be ruled out. He claimed:

"The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order."

Though Hoyle declared himself an atheist, this apparent suggestion of a guiding hand led him to the conclusion that "a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and ... there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature." He would go on to compare the random emergence of even the simplest cell without panspermia to the likelihood that "a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein" and to compare the chance of obtaining even a single functioning protein by chance combination of amino acids to a solar system full of blind men solving Rubik's Cubes simultaneously. This is known as "the junkyard tornado", or "Hoyle's Fallacy". Those who advocate the intelligent design (ID) philosophy sometimes cite Hoyle's work in this area to support the claim that the universe was fine tuned to allow intelligent life to be possible.

Other opinions
While Hoyle was well-regarded for his works on nucleosynthesis and science popularization, he held positions on a wide range of scientific issues that were in direct opposition to the prevailing theories of the scientific community. Paul Davies describes how he "loved his maverick personality and contempt for orthodoxy", quoting Hoyle as saying "I don't care what they think" about his theories on discrepant redshift, and "it is better to be interesting and wrong than boring and right".

Hoyle often expressed anger against the labyrinthine and petty politics at Cambridge and frequently feuded with members and institutions of all levels of the British astronomy community, leading to his resignation from Cambridge in September 1971 over the way he thought Donald Lynden-Bell was chosen to replace retiring professor Roderick Oliver Redman behind his back. According to biographer Simon Mitton, Hoyle was crestfallen because he felt that his colleagues at Cambridge were unsupportive.

In addition to his views on steady state theory and panspermia, Hoyle also supported the following controversial hypotheses and speculations:
 * The correlation of flu epidemics with the sunspot cycle, with epidemics occurring at the minimum of the cycle. The idea was that flu contagion was scattered in the interstellar medium and reached Earth only when the solar wind had minimum power.
 * Two fossil Archaeopteryx were man-made fakes.
 * The theory of abiogenic petroleum, held by Hoyle and by Thomas Gold, where natural hydrocarbons (oil and natural gas) are explained as the result of deep carbon deposits, instead of fossilized organic material. This theory is dismissed by the mainstream petroleum geochemistry community.
 * In his 1977 book On Stonehenge, Hoyle supported Gerald Hawkins's proposal that the fifty-six Aubrey holes at Stonehenge were used as a system for neolithic Britons to predict eclipses, using them in the daily positioning of marker stones. Using the Aubrey holes for predicting lunar eclipses was originally proposed by Gerald Hawkins in his book of the subject Stonehenge Decoded (1965).

Nobel Prize for Physics
Hoyle was also at the centre of two unrelated controversies involving the politics for selecting recipients of the Nobel Prize for Physics. The first arose when the 1974 prize went in part to Antony Hewish for his leading role in the discovery of pulsars. Hoyle made an off-the-cuff remark to a reporter in Montreal that "Yes, Jocelyn Bell was the actual discoverer, not Hewish, who was her supervisor, so she should have been included." This remark received widespread international coverage. Worried about being misunderstood, Hoyle carefully composed a letter of explanation to The Times.

The 1983 prize went in part to William Alfred Fowler "for his theoretical and experimental studies of the nuclear reactions of importance in the formation of the chemical elements in the universe" despite Hoyle having been the inventor of the theory of nucleosynthesis in the stars with two research papers published shortly after WWII. So some suspicion arose that Hoyle was denied the third share of this prize because of his earlier public disagreement with the 1974 award. British scientist Harry Kroto later said that the Nobel Prize is not just an award for a piece of work, but a recognition of a scientist's overall reputation and Hoyle's championing many disreputable and disproven ideas may have invalidated him. In Nature, editor John Maddox called it "shameful" that Fowler had been rewarded with a Nobel prize and Hoyle had not.

Media appearances
Hoyle appeared in a series of radio talks on astronomy for the BBC in the 1950s; these were collected in the book The Nature of the Universe, and he went on to write a number of other popular science books.

In the play Sur la route de Montalcino, the character of Fred Hoyle confronts Georges Lemaître on a fictional journey to the Vatican in 1957.

Hoyle appeared in the 1973 short film Take the World From Another Point of View.

In the 2004 television movie Hawking, Fred Hoyle is played by Peter Firth. In the movie, Stephen Hawking (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) publicly confronts Hoyle at a Royal Society lecture in summer 1964, about a mistake he found in his latest publication.

Honours

Awards
 * Elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1964)
 * Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1957
 * Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1968)
 * Bakerian Lecture (1968)
 * Elected member of the United States National Academy of Sciences (1969)
 * Bruce Medal (1970)
 * Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (1971)
 * Jansky Lectureship before the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
 * Knighthood (1972)
 * President of the Royal Astronomical Society (1971–1973)
 * Honorary Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge (1973–2001)
 * Royal Medal (1974)
 * Klumpke-Roberts Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (1977)
 * Elected member of the American Philosophical Society (1980)
 * Balzan Prize for Astrophysics: evolution of stars (1994, with Martin Schwarzschild)
 * Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, with Edwin Salpeter (1997)

Named after him
 * Hoyle Building, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge
 * Asteroid 8077 Hoyle
 * Janibacter hoylei, species of bacteria discovered by ISRO scientists
 * Sir Fred Hoyle Way, a stretch of the A650 dual carriageway in Bingley.
 * Institute of Physics Fred Hoyle Medal and Prize

Memorabilia
The Fred Hoyle Collection at St John's College Library contains "a pair of walking boots, five boxes of photographs, two ice axes, some dental X-rays, a telescope, ten large film reels and an unpublished opera" in addition to 150 document boxes of papers.

Non-fiction

 * The Nature of the Universe – a series of broadcast lectures, Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1950 (early use of the Big Bang phrase)
 * Frontiers of Astronomy, Heinemann Education Books Ltd, London, 1955. The Internet Archive. HarperCollins, ISBN 978-0060027605
 * Burbidge, E.M., Burbidge, G.R., Fowler, W.A. and Hoyle, F., "Synthesis of the Elements in Stars", Revs. Mod. Physics 29:547–650, 1957, the famous B2FH paper after their initials, for which Hoyle is most famous among professional cosmologists.
 * Astronomy, A history of man's investigation of the universe, Crescent Books, Inc., London 1962,
 * Of men and galaxies, Seattle University of Washington, 1964,
 * Galaxies, Nuclei, and Quasars, Harper & Row, Publishers, New York, 1965,
 * Nicolaus Copernicus, Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., London, p. 78, 1973
 * Astronomy and Cosmology: A Modern Course, 1975, ISBN 0716703513
 * Energy or Extinction? The case for nuclear energy, 1977, Heinemann Educational Books Limited, ISBN 0435544306. In this provocative book Hoyle establishes the dependence of Western civilization on energy consumption and predicts that nuclear fission as a source of energy is essential for its survival.
 * Ten Faces of the Universe, 1977, W.H. Freeman and Company (San Francisco), ISBN 071670384X
 * On Stonehenge, 1977, London : Heinemann Educational, ISBN 978-0435329587; San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company, ISBN 0716703645 pbk.
 * Lifecloud – The Origin of Life in the Universe, Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe C., J.M. Dent & Sons, 1978. ISBN 0460043358
 * Diseases from Space (with Chandra Wickramasinghe) (J.M. Dent, London, 1979)
 * Commonsense in Nuclear Energy, Fred Hoyle and Geoffrey Hoyle, 1980, Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., ISBN 0435544322
 * The big bang in astronomy, New Scientist 92(1280):527, 19 November 1981.
 * Ice, the Ultimate Human Catastrophe,1981, ISBN 0826400647 Snippet view from Google Books
 * The Intelligent Universe, 1983
 * From Grains to Bacteria, Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe N.C., University College Cardiff Press, ISBN 0906449642, 1984
 * Evolution from space (the Omni lecture) and other papers on the origin of life 1982, ISBN 0894900838
 * Evolution from Space: A Theory of Cosmic Creationism, 1984, ISBN 0671492632
 * Viruses from Space, 1986, ISBN 0906449936
 * With Jayant Narlikar and Chandra Wickramasinghe, The extragalactic universe: an alternative view, Nature 346:807–812, 30 August 1990.
 * The Origin of the Universe and the Origin of Religion,1993, ISBN 1559210834
 * Home Is Where the Wind Blows: Chapters from a Cosmologist's Life (autobiography) Oxford University Press 1994, ISBN 0198500602
 * Mathematics of Evolution, (1987) University College Cardiff Press, (1999) Acorn Enterprises LLC., ISBN 0966993403
 * With G. Burbridge and Narlikar J.V. A Different Approach to Cosmology, Cambridge University Press 2000, ISBN 0521662230

Science fiction

Hoyle also wrote science fiction. In his first novel, The Black Cloud, most intelligent life in the universe takes the form of interstellar gas clouds; they are surprised to learn that intelligent life can also form on planets. He wrote a television series, A for Andromeda, which was also published as a novel. His play Rockets in Ursa Major had a professional production at the Mermaid Theatre in 1962.
 * The Black Cloud, 1957
 * Ossian's Ride, 1959
 * A for Andromeda, 1962 (co-authored with John Elliot)
 * Fifth Planet, 1963 (co-authored with Geoffrey Hoyle)
 * Andromeda Breakthrough, 1965 (co-authored with John Elliot)
 * October the First Is Too Late, 1966
 * Element 79 (collection of short stories), 1967
 * Rockets in Ursa Major, 1969 (co-authored with Geoffrey Hoyle)
 * Seven Steps to the Sun, 1970 (co-authored with Geoffrey Hoyle)
 * The Inferno, 1973 (co-authored with Geoffrey Hoyle)
 * The Molecule Men and the Monster of Loch Ness, 1973 (co-authored with Geoffrey Hoyle)
 * Into Deepest Space, 1974 (co-authored with Geoffrey Hoyle)
 * The Incandescent Ones, 1977 (co-authored with Geoffrey Hoyle)
 * The Westminster Disaster, 1978 (co-authored with Geoffrey Hoyle and Edited by Barbara Hoyle)
 * The Frozen Planet of Azuron, 1982 (Ladybird Books, co-authored with Geoffrey Hoyle)
 * The Energy Pirate, 1982 (Ladybird Books, co-authored with Geoffrey Hoyle)
 * The Planet of Death, 1982 (Ladybird Books, co-authored with Geoffrey Hoyle)
 * The Giants of Universal Park, 1982 (Ladybird Books, co-authored with Geoffrey Hoyle)
 * Comet Halley, 1985

Most of these are independent of each other. Andromeda Breakthrough is a sequel to A for Andromeda and Into Deepest Space is a sequel to Rockets in Ursa Major. The four Ladybird Books are intended for children.

Some stories of the collection Element 79 are fantasy, in particular "Welcome to Slippage City" and "The Judgement of Aphrodite". Both introduce mythological characters.

The Telegraph (UK) called him a "masterful" science fiction writer.

title: Fred Hoyle


text:
French cuisine

French cuisine is the cooking traditions and practices from France. In the 14th century, Guillaume Tirel, a court chef known as "Taillevent", wrote Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of medieval France. In the 17th century, chefs François Pierre La Varenne and Marie-Antoine Carême spearheaded movements that shifted French cooking away from its foreign influences and developed France's own indigenous style.

Cheese and wine are a major part of the cuisine. They play different roles regionally and nationally, with many variations and appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) (regulated appellation) laws.

Culinary tourism and the Guide Michelin helped to acquaint commoners with the cuisine bourgeoise of the urban elites and the peasant cuisine of the French countryside starting in the 20th century. Many dishes that were once regional have proliferated in variations across the country.

Knowledge of French cooking has contributed significantly to Western cuisines. Its criteria are used widely in Western cookery school boards and culinary education. In November 2010, French gastronomy was added by the UNESCO to its lists of the world's "intangible cultural heritage".

Middle Ages

In French medieval cuisine, banquets were common among the aristocracy. Multiple courses would be prepared, but served in a style called service en confusion, or all at once. Food was generally eaten by hand, meats being sliced off in large pieces held between the thumb and two fingers. The sauces were highly seasoned and thick, and heavily flavored mustards were used.

Pies were a common banquet item, with the crust serving primarily as a container, rather than as food itself, and it was not until the very end of the Late Middle Ages that the shortcrust pie was developed.

Meals often ended with an issue de table, which later changed into the modern dessert, and typically consisted of dragées (in the Middle Ages, meaning spiced lumps of hardened sugar or honey), aged cheese, and spiced wine, such as hypocras.

The ingredients of the time varied greatly according to the seasons and the church calendar, and many items were preserved with salt, spices, honey, and other preservatives. Late spring, summer, and autumn afforded abundance, while winter meals were more sparse. Livestock were slaughtered at the beginning of winter. Beef was often salted, while pork was salted and smoked. Bacon and sausages would be smoked in the chimney, while the tongue and hams were brined and dried. Cucumbers were brined as well, while greens would be packed in jars with salt. Fruits, nuts and root vegetables would be boiled in honey for preservation. Whale, dolphin and porpoise were considered fish, so during Lent, the salted meats of these sea mammals were eaten.

Artificial freshwater ponds (often called stews) held carp, pike, tench, bream, eel, and other fish. Poultry was kept in special yards, with pigeon and squab being reserved for the elite. Game was highly prized, but very rare, and included venison, boar, hare, rabbit, and fowl.

Kitchen gardens provided herbs, including some, such as tansy, rue, pennyroyal, and hyssop, which are rarely used today. Spices were treasured and very expensive at that time—they included pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and mace. Some spices used then, but no longer today in French cuisine are cubebs, long pepper (both from vines similar to black pepper), grains of paradise, and galengale.

Sweet-sour flavors were commonly added to dishes with vinegar and verjus combined with sugar (for the affluent) or honey. A common form of food preparation was to thoroughly cook, pound, and strain mixtures into fine pastes and mushes, something believed to be beneficial to make use of nutrients.

Visual display was prized. Brilliant colors were obtained by the addition of, for example, juices from spinach and the green part of leeks. Yellow came from saffron or egg yolk, while red came from sunflower, and purple came from Crozophora tinctoria or Heliotropium europaeum.

Gold and silver leaf were placed on food surfaces and brushed with egg whites. Elaborate and showy dishes were the result, such as tourte parmerienne which was a pastry dish made to look like a castle with chicken-drumstick turrets coated with gold leaf. One of the grandest showpieces of the time was a roast swan or peacock sewn back into its skin with feathers intact, the feet and beak being gilded. Since both birds are stringy, and taste unpleasant, the skin and feathers could be kept and filled with the cooked, minced and seasoned flesh of tastier birds, like goose or chicken.

The most well-known French chef of the Middle Ages was Guillaume Tirel, also known as Taillevent. Taillevent worked in numerous royal kitchens during the 14th century. His first position was as a kitchen boy in 1326. He was chef to Philip VI, then the Dauphin who was son of John II. The Dauphin became King Charles V of France in 1364, with Taillevent as his chief cook. His career spanned sixty-six years, and upon his death, he was buried in grand style between his two wives. His tombstone represents him in armor, holding a shield with three cooking pots, marmites, on it.

Ancien Régime
Paris was the central hub of culture and economic activity, and as such, the most highly skilled culinary craftsmen were to be found there. Markets in Paris such as Les Halles, la Mégisserie, those found along Rue Mouffetard, and similar smaller versions in other cities were very important to the distribution of food. Those that gave French produce its characteristic identity were regulated by the guild system, which developed in the Middle Ages. In Paris, the guilds were regulated by city government as well as by the French crown. A guild restricted those in a given branch of the culinary industry to operate only within that field.

There were two groups of guilds—first, those that supplied the raw materials: butchers, fishmongers, grain merchants, and gardeners. The second group were those that supplied prepared foods: bakers, pastry cooks, sauce makers, poulterers, and caterers. Some guilds offered both raw materials and prepared food, such as the charcutiers and rôtisseurs (purveyors of roasted meat dishes). They would supply cooked meat pies and dishes as well as raw meat and poultry. This caused issues with butchers and poulterers, who sold the same raw materials.

The guilds served as a training ground for those within the industry. The degrees of assistant cook, full-fledged cook and master chef were conferred. Those who reached the level of master chef were of considerable rank in their individual industry, and enjoyed a high level of income as well as economic and job security. At times, those in the royal kitchens did fall under the guild hierarchy, but it was necessary to find them a parallel appointment based on their skills after leaving the service of the royal kitchens. This was not uncommon as the Paris cooks' Guild regulations allowed for this movement.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, French cuisine assimilated many new food items from the New World. Although they were slow to be adopted, records of banquets show Catherine de' Medici (1519–1589?) serving sixty-six turkeys at one dinner. The dish called cassoulet has its roots in the New World discovery of haricot beans, which are central to the dish's creation, but had not existed outside of the Americas until the arrival of Europeans.

Haute cuisine (, "high cuisine") has foundations during the 17th century with a chef named La Varenne. As an author of works such as Le Cuisinier françois, he is credited with publishing the first true French cookbook. His book includes the earliest known reference to roux using pork fat. The book contained two sections, one for meat days, and one for fasting. His recipes marked a change from the style of cookery known in the Middle Ages to new techniques aimed at creating somewhat lighter dishes, and more modest presentations of pies as individual pastries and turnovers. La Varenne also published a book on pastry in 1667 entitled Le Parfait confitvrier (republished as Le Confiturier françois) which similarly updated and codified the emerging haute cuisine standards for desserts and pastries.

Chef François Massialot wrote Le Cuisinier roïal et bourgeois in 1691, during the reign of Louis XIV. The book contains menus served to the royal courts in 1690. Massialot worked mostly as a freelance cook, and was not employed by any particular household. Massialot and many other royal cooks received special privileges by association with the French royalty. They were not subject to the regulation of the guilds; therefore, they could cater weddings and banquets without restriction. His book is the first to list recipes alphabetically, perhaps a forerunner of the first culinary dictionary. It is in this book that a marinade is first seen in print, with one type for poultry and feathered game, while a second is for fish and shellfish. No quantities are listed in the recipes, which suggests that Massialot was writing for trained cooks.

The successive updates of Le Cuisinier roïal et bourgeois include important refinements such as adding a glass of wine to fish stock. Definitions were also added to the 1703 edition. The 1712 edition, retitled Le Nouveau cuisinier royal et bourgeois, was increased to two volumes, and was written in a more elaborate style with extensive explanations of technique. Additional smaller preparations are included in this edition as well, leading to lighter preparations, and adding a third course to the meal. Ragout, a stew still central to French cookery, makes its first appearance as a single dish in this edition as well; prior to that, it was listed as a garnish.

Late 18th century – early 19th century
Shortly before the French Revolution, dishes like bouchées à la Reine gained prominence. Essentially royal cuisine produced by the royal household, this is a chicken-based recipe served on vol-au-vent created under the influence of Queen Marie Leszczyńska, the Polish-born wife of Louis XV. This recipe is still popular today, as are other recipes from Queen Marie Leszczyńska like consommé à la Reine and filet d'aloyau braisé à la royale. Queen Marie is also credited with introducing Polonaise garnishing to the French diet.

The French Revolution was integral to the expansion of French cuisine, because it abolished the guild system. This meant anyone could now produce and sell any culinary item they wished.

Bread was a significant food source among peasants and the working class in the late 18th century, with many of the nation's people being dependent on it. In French provinces, bread was often consumed three times a day by the people of France. According to Brace, bread was referred to as the basic dietary item for the masses, and it was also used as a foundation for soup. In fact, bread was so important that harvest, interruption of commerce by wars, heavy flour exploration, and prices and supply were all watched and controlled by the French Government. Among the underprivileged, constant fear of famine was always prevalent. From 1725 to 1789, there were fourteen years of bad yields to blame for the low grain supply. In Bordeaux, during 1708–1789, thirty-three bad harvests occurred.

Marie-Antoine Carême was born in 1784, five years before the Revolution. He spent his younger years working at a pâtisserie until he was discovered by Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord; he would later cook for Napoleon Bonaparte. Prior to his employment with Talleyrand, Carême had become known for his pièces montées, which were extravagant constructions of pastry and sugar architecture.

More important to Carême's career was his contribution to the refinement of French cuisine. The basis for his style of cooking was his sauces, which he named mother sauces. Often referred to as fonds, meaning "foundations", these base sauces, espagnole, velouté, and béchamel, are still known today. Each of these sauces was made in large quantities in his kitchen, then formed the basis of multiple derivatives. Carême had over one hundred sauces in his repertoire.

In his writings, soufflés appear for the first time. Although many of his preparations today seem extravagant, he simplified and codified an even more complex cuisine that existed beforehand. Central to his codification of the cuisine were Le Maître d'hôtel français (1822), Le Cuisinier parisien (1828) and L'Art de la cuisine française au dix-neuvième siècle (1833–5).

Late 19th century – early 20th century
Georges Auguste Escoffier is commonly acknowledged as the central figure to the modernization of haute cuisine and organizing what would become the national cuisine of France. His influence began with the rise of some of the great hotels in Europe and America during the 1880s-1890s. The Savoy Hotel managed by César Ritz was an early hotel in which Escoffier worked, but much of his influence came during his management of the kitchens in the Carlton from 1898 until 1921. He created a system of "parties" called the brigade system, which separated the professional kitchen into five separate stations.

These five stations included the garde manger that prepared cold dishes; the entremettier prepared starches and vegetables, the rôtisseur prepared roasts, grilled and fried dishes; the saucier prepared sauces and soups; and the pâtissier prepared all pastry and desserts items.

This system meant that instead of one person preparing a dish on one's own, now multiple cooks would prepare the different components for the dish. An example used is oeufs au plat Meyerbeer, the prior system would take up to fifteen minutes to prepare the dish, while in the new system, the eggs would be prepared by the entremettier, kidney grilled by the rôtisseur, truffle sauce made by the saucier and thus the dish could be prepared in a shorter time and served quickly in the popular restaurants.

Escoffier also simplified and organized the modern menu and structure of the meal. He published a series of articles in professional journals which outlined the sequence, and he finally published his Livre des menus in 1912. This type of service embraced the service à la russe (serving meals in separate courses on individual plates), which Félix Urbain Dubois had made popular in the 1860s. Escoffier's largest contribution was the publication of Le Guide Culinaire in 1903, which established the fundamentals of French cookery. The book was a collaboration with Philéas Gilbert, E. Fetu, A. Suzanne, B. Reboul, Ch. Dietrich, A. Caillat and others. The significance of this is to illustrate the universal acceptance by multiple high-profile chefs to this new style of cooking.

Le Guide Culinaire deemphasized the use of heavy sauces and leaned toward lighter fumets, which are the essence of flavor taken from fish, meat and vegetables. This style of cooking looked to create garnishes and sauces whose function is to add to the flavor of the dish, rather than mask flavors like the heavy sauces and ornate garnishes of the past. Escoffier took inspiration for his work from personal recipes in addition to recipes from Carême, Dubois and ideas from Taillevent's Le Viandier, which had a modern version published in 1897. A second source for recipes came from existing peasant dishes that were translated into the refined techniques of haute cuisine.

Expensive ingredients would replace the common ingredients, making the dishes much less humble. The third source of recipes was Escoffier himself, who invented many new dishes, such as pêche Melba. Escoffier updated Le Guide Culinaire four times during his lifetime, noting in the foreword to the book's first edition that even with its 5,000 recipes, the book should not be considered an "exhaustive" text, and that even if it were at the point when he wrote the book, "it would no longer be so tomorrow, because progress marches on each day."

This period is also marked by the appearance of the nouvelle cuisine. The term "nouvelle cuisine" has been used many times in the history of French cuisine which emphasized the freshness, lightness and clarity of flavor and inspired by new movements in world cuisine. In the 1740s, Menon first used the term, but the cooking of Vincent La Chapelle and François Marin was also considered modern. In the 1960s, Henri Gault and Christian Millau revived it to describe the cooking of Paul Bocuse, Jean and Pierre Troisgros, Michel Guérard, Roger Vergé and Raymond Oliver. These chefs were working toward rebelling against the "orthodoxy" of Escoffier's cuisine. Some of the chefs were students of Fernand Point at the Pyramide in Vienne, and had left to open their own restaurants. Gault and Millau "discovered the formula" contained in ten characteristics of this new style of cooking.

The characteristics that emerged during this period were:

1. A rejection of excessive complication in cooking.

2. The cooking times for most fish, seafood, game birds, veal, green vegetables and pâtés was greatly reduced in an attempt to preserve the natural flavors. Steaming was an important trend from this characteristic.

3. The cuisine was made with the freshest possible ingredients.

4. Large menus were abandoned in favor of shorter menus.

5. Strong marinades for meat and game ceased to be used.

6. They stopped using heavy sauces such as espagnole and béchamel thickened with flour based "roux" in favor of seasoning their dishes with fresh herbs, quality butter, lemon juice, and vinegar.

7. They used regional dishes for inspiration instead of haute cuisine dishes.

8. New techniques were embraced and modern equipment was often used; Bocuse even used microwave ovens.

9. The chefs paid close attention to the dietary needs of their guests through their dishes.

10. And finally, the chefs were extremely inventive and created new combinations and pairings.

Some have speculated that a contributor to nouvelle cuisine was World War II when animal protein was in short supply during the German occupation. By the mid-1980s food writers stated that the style of cuisine had reached exhaustion and many chefs began returning to the haute cuisine style of cooking, although much of the lighter presentations and new techniques remained.

When the French colonized Vietnam, one of the most famous and popular dishes, pot-au-feu, was subsequently introduced to the local people. While it did not directly create the widely recognizable Vietnamese dish, Pho, it served as a reference for the modern-day form of Pho.

National cuisine
There are many dishes that are considered part of French national cuisine today.

A meal often consists of three courses, hors d'œuvre or entrée (introductory course, sometimes soup), plat principal (main course), fromage (cheese course) or dessert, sometimes with a salad offered before the cheese or dessert.

 * Hors d'œuvre

Regional cuisine

French regional cuisine is characterized by its extreme diversity and style. Traditionally, each region of France has its own distinctive cuisine.

Paris and Île-de-France
Paris and Île-de-France are central regions where almost anything from the country is available, as all train lines meet in the city. Over 9,000 restaurants exist in Paris and almost any cuisine can be obtained here. High-quality Michelin Guide-rated restaurants proliferate here.

Champagne, Lorraine, and Alsace
Game and ham are popular in Champagne, as well as the special sparkling wine simply known as Champagne. Fine fruit preserves are known from Lorraine as well as the quiche Lorraine. As region of historically Allemanic German culture Alsace has retained Elements of German cuisine, especially similar to those from the neighboring Palatinate and Baden region, but has implemented French influences since France first took control of the region in the 17th century. As such, beers made in the area are similar to the style of bordering Germany. Dishes like choucroute (French for sauerkraut) are also popular. Many "eaux de vie" (distilled alcohol from fruit) also called schnaps are from this region, due to a wide variety of local fruits (cherry, raspberry, pear, grapes) and especially prunes (mirabelle, plum).[9]:259,295

Nord Pas-de-Calais, Picardy, Normandy, and Brittany
The coastline supplies many crustaceans, sea bass, monkfish and herring. Normandy has top-quality seafood, such as scallops and sole, while Brittany has a supply of lobster, crayfish and mussels.

Normandy is home to a large population of apple trees; apples are often used in dishes, as well as cider and Calvados. The northern areas of this region, especially Nord, grow ample amounts of wheat, sugar beets and chicory. Thick stews are found often in these northern areas as well.

The produce of these northern regions is also considered some of the best in the country, including cauliflower and artichokes. Buckwheat grows widely in Brittany as well and is used in the region's galettes, called jalet, which is where this dish originated.

Loire Valley and central France
High-quality fruits come from the Loire Valley and central France, including cherries grown for the liqueur Guignolet and Belle Angevine pears. The strawberries and melons are also of high quality.

Fish are seen in the cuisine, often served with a beurre blanc sauce, as well as wild game, lamb, calves, Charolais cattle, Géline fowl, and goat cheeses.

Young vegetables are used often, as are the specialty mushrooms of the region, champignons de Paris. Vinegars from Orléans are a specialty ingredient used as well.

Burgundy and Franche-Comté
Burgundy and Franche-Comté are known for their wines. Pike, perch, river crabs, snails, game, redcurrants, blackcurrants are from both Burgundy and Franche-Comté.

Savory specialties accounted in the Cuisine franc-comtoise from the Franche-Comté region are ', ', trout, smoked meats and cheeses such as Mont d'Or, Comté and Morbier which are best eaten hot or cold, ' and the special dessert '.

Charolais beef, poultry from Bresse, sea snail, honey cake, Chaource and Époisses cheese are specialties of the local cuisine of Burgundy. Dijon mustard is also a specialty of Burgundy cuisine. Crème de cassis is a popular liquor made from blackcurrants. Oils are used in the cooking here, including nut oils and rapeseed oil.

Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

The area covers the old province of Dauphiné, once known as the "larder" of France, that gave its name to gratin dauphinois, traditionally made in a large baking dish rubbed with garlic. Successive layers of potatoes, salt, pepper and milk are piled up to the top of the dish. It is then baked in the oven at low temperature for 2 hours.

Fruit and young vegetables are popular in the cuisine from the Rhône valley, as are wines like Hermitage AOC, Crozes-Hermitage AOC and Condrieu AOC. Walnuts and walnut products and oil from Noix de Grenoble AOC, lowland cheeses, like St. Marcellin, St. Félicien and Bleu du Vercors-Sassenage.

Poultry from Bresse, guinea fowl from Drôme and fish from the Dombes, a light yeast-based cake, called Pogne de Romans and the regional speciality, Raviole du Dauphiné, and there is the short-crust "Suisse", a Valence biscuit speciality.

Lakes and mountain streams in Rhône-Alpes are key to the cuisine as well. Lyon and Savoy supply sausages while the Alpine regions supply their specialty cheeses like Beaufort, Abondance, Reblochon, Tomme and Vacherin.

Mères lyonnaises are female cooks particular to this region who provide local gourmet establishments. Celebrated chefs from this region include Fernand Point, Paul Bocuse, the Troisgros brothers and Alain Chapel.

The Chartreuse Mountains are the source of the green and yellow digestif liquor Chartreuse, produced by the monks of the Grande Chartreuse.

Since the 2014 administrative reform, the ancient area of Auvergne is now part of the region. One of its leading chefs is Regis Marcon.

Poitou-Charentes and Limousin
Oysters come from the Oléron-Marennes basin, while mussels come from the Bay of Aiguillon.

High-quality produce comes from the region's hinterland, especially goat cheese. This region and in the Vendée is grazing ground for Parthenaise cattle, while poultry is raised in Challans.

The region of Poitou-Charentes purportedly produces the best butter and cream in France. Cognac is also made in the region along the river Charente.

Limousin is home to the Limousin cattle, as well as sheep. The woodlands offer game and mushrooms. The southern area around Brive draws its cooking influence from Périgord and Auvergne to produce a robust cuisine.

Bordeaux, Périgord, Gascony, and Basque country
Bordeaux, a renowned French city, lends its name to a distinctive wine style celebrated worldwide. Bordeaux, along with the larger Aquitaine region, ranks among the top three wine destinations globally, alongside Napa Valley and Tuscany. Saint-Emilion, a UNESCO World Heritage village, is a key destination, drawing a multitude of wine tourists to the region.

Bordeaux's diverse viticultural regions specialize in a range of grape varieties such as Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and increasingly Cabernet Sauvignon, each thriving in the picturesque landscapes of the area. This variety contributes significantly to the region's rich viticultural diversity and the production of wines of strong quality.

Building on this agricultural foundation, Bordeaux wine offers a rich history, varied terroir, and complex flavor profile, making it highly versatile for food pairing across various cuisines and occasions. Traditional Bordeaux blends typically include the aforementioned Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc, providing a spectrum of flavors and textures that complement a wide array of dishes.

Lighter wines like Bordeaux Blanc or a light-bodied Bordeaux Rouge can elegantly accompany seafood or poultry. The crisp acidity and citrus notes of Bordeaux Blanc complement delicate seafood dishes like grilled fish or shrimp cocktail, while the soft tannins of a light Bordeaux Rouge enhance the flavors of roasted chicken or turkey. Moreover, Bordeaux Rouge wines pair beautifully with dishes like roasted lamb, duck breast, or vegetable stews. The wine's balanced fruitiness and moderate tannins complement the richness of the proteins without overpowering the palate.

Meanwhile, more robust Bordeaux Rouge wines, particularly from renowned appellations like Saint-Émilion, are perfect for richer, savory dishes such as grilled steak or braised beef, where their intense fruit flavors and firm tannins provide a balanced counterpoint to the umami-rich flavors. Understanding this interplay of flavors allows diners to elevate their culinary experiences, creating memorable pairings with Bordeaux wines.

The Pyrenees also has lamb, such as the Agneau de Pauillac, as well as sheep cheeses. Beef cattle in the region include the Blonde d'Aquitaine, Boeuf de Chalosse, Boeuf Gras de Bazas, and Garonnaise.

Free-range chicken, turkey, pigeon, capon, goose and duck prevail in the region as well. Gascony and Périgord cuisines includes pâtés, terrines, confits and magrets. This is one of the regions notable for its production of foie gras, or fattened goose or duck liver.

The cuisine of the region is often heavy and farm-based. Armagnac is also from this region, as are prunes from Agen.

Toulouse, Quercy, and Aveyron
Gers, a department of France, is within this region and has poultry, while La Montagne Noire and Lacaune area offer hams and dry sausages.

White corn is planted heavily in the area both for use in fattening ducks and geese for foie gras and for the production of millas, a cornmeal porridge. Haricot beans are also grown in this area, which are central to the dish cassoulet.

The finest sausage in France is saucisse de Toulouse, which also part of cassoulet of Toulouse. The Cahors area produces a specialty "black wine" as well as truffles and mushrooms.

This region also produces milk-fed lamb. Unpasteurized ewe's milk is used to produce Roquefort in Aveyron, while in Laguiole is producing unpasteurized cow's milk cheese. Salers cattle produce milk for cheese, as well as beef and veal products.

The volcanic soils create flinty cheeses and superb lentils. Mineral waters are produced in high volume in this region as well. Cabécou cheese is from Rocamadour, a medieval settlement erected directly on a cliff, in the rich countryside of.

This area is one of the region's oldest milk producers; it has chalky soil, marked by history and human activity, and is favourable for the raising of goats.

Roussillon, Languedoc, and Cévennes
Restaurants are popular in the area known as Le Midi. Oysters come from the Étang de Thau, to be served in the restaurants of Bouzigues, Mèze, and Sète. Mussels are commonly seen here in addition to fish specialties of Sète, bourride, tielles and rouille de seiche.

In the Languedoc jambon cru, sometimes known as jambon de montagne is produced. High quality Roquefort comes from the brebis (sheep) on the Larzac plateau.

The Les Cévennes area offers mushrooms, chestnuts, berries, honey, lamb, game, sausages, pâtés and goat cheeses. Catalan influence can be seen in the cuisine here with dishes like brandade made from a purée of dried cod wrapped in mangold leaves. Snails are plentiful and are prepared in a specific Catalan style known as a cargolade. Wild boar can be found in the more mountainous regions of the Midi.

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
The Provence and Côte d'Azur region is rich in quality citrus, vegetables, fruits and herbs; the region is one of the largest suppliers of all these ingredients in France. The region also produces the largest amount of olives, and creates superb olive oil. Lavender is used in many dishes found in Haute-Provence. Other important herbs in the cuisine include thyme, sage, rosemary, basil, savory, fennel, marjoram, tarragon, oregano, and bay leaf. Honey is a prized ingredient in the region.

Seafood is widely available throughout the coastal area and is heavily represented in the cuisine. Goat cheeses, air-dried sausages, lamb, beef, and chicken are popular here. Garlic and anchovies are used in many of the region's sauces, as in Poulet Provençal, which uses white wine, tomatoes, herbs, and sometimes anchovies, and Pastis is found everywhere that alcohol is served.

The cuisine uses a large amount of vegetables for lighter preparations. Truffles are commonly seen in Provence during the winter. Thirteen desserts in Provence are the traditional Christmas dessert, e.g. quince cheese, biscuits, almonds, nougat, apple, and fougasse.

Rice is grown in the Camargue, which is the northernmost rice growing area in Europe, with Camargue red rice being a specialty. Anibal Camous, a Marseillais who lived to be 104, maintained that it was by eating garlic daily that he kept his "youth" and brilliance. When his eighty-year-old son died, the father mourned: "I always told him he wouldn't live long, poor boy. He ate too little garlic!"

Corsica
Goats and sheep proliferate on the island of Corsica, and lamb are used to prepare dishes such as stufato, ragouts and roasts. Cheeses are also produced, with brocciu being the most popular.

Chestnuts, growing in the Castagniccia forest, are used to produce flour, which is used in turn to make bread, cakes and polenta. The forest provides acorns used to feed the pigs and boars that provide much of the protein for the island's cuisine. Fresh fish and seafood are common.

The island's pork is used to make fine hams, sausage and other unique items including coppa (dried rib cut), lonzu (dried pork fillet), figatellu (smoked and dried liverwurst), salumu (a dried sausage), salcietta, Panzetta, bacon, and prisuttu (farmer's ham).

Clementines (which hold an AOC designation), lemons, nectarines and figs are grown there. Candied citron is used in nougats, while and the aforementioned brocciu and chestnuts are also used in desserts.

Corsica offers a variety of wines and fruit liqueurs, including Cap Corse, Patrimonio, Cédratine, Bonapartine, liqueur de myrte, vins de fruit, Rappu, and eau-de-vie de châtaigne.

French Guiana
French Guianan cuisine or Guianan cuisine is a blend of the different cultures that have settled in French Guiana including European, Indian, Indigenous (Amerindian), Chinese, and Hmong influences. Common dishes include fricassés, stews made of awara broth (made from palm pulp), blaff (onions, garlic, celery and basil broth), pimentade (tomato sauce broth) or roast cougnade (grilled fish), and Colombos (meat-based stew and vegetables with curry). There are markets in Cayenne selling fresh and prepared foods among other items. Some dishes from Metropolitan France are reimagined using local ingredients such as Gratin de Couac using cassava root in lieu of potato.

Réunion
The cuisine of Réunion is a Creole cuisine (in French, Créole) with a mixture of cooking styles and ingredients. It is strongly influenced by Malagasy cuisine (from Madagascar), as well as other cuisines from East Africa. It also incorporates elements of larger French, Indian and Chinese cuisines, brought by French colonialization and Indian and Chinese immigrants respectively. Notable dishes include samosas, bouchons, rougail, and various curries.

Martinique
The cuisine of Martinique is a Creole cuisine with a mix of French, indigenous, African, and Indian cooking styles using local ingredients such as breadfruit, cassava, and christophene. Creole dishes rely heavily on seafood, including curries and fritters. Crêperies, Brasseries, and restaurants featuring cuisine from various French regions can be found all over Martinique. Notable local dishes include Accra a fish-based fritter, Boudin sausage, Fricassée de chatrou an occotpus stew, Colombo de Martinique a coconut-milk based curry, and Ti Punch a rum and cane juice based drink.

Guadeloupe
The cuisine of Guadeloupe includes Caribbean, African, European and Indian influences. Notable dishes includes the fish fritter accra, a savory stuffed donut called bokit, and coconut-based desserts like custard and sorbet. Notably. the spice blend "colombo" or "massalé" is a curry-like mix of pepper, saffron, coriander, cumin and garlic with the flavor profile included by Sri Lankan immigrants. The island is also known for rums and includes nine distilleries producing traditional and agricultural rum.

New Caledonia
The cuisine of New Caledonia includes local Kanak, Melanesian, and traditional French cooking styles. A notable local dish is bougna which is a stew composed of starches, taros, sweet potatoes, poingo bananas, yams, and is accompanied by local meat and cooked in coconut milk. Seafood is also common including fish and lobster. Traditional French pastries, breads, and cheese may also be found especially in the capital of Nouméa.

French Polynesia
The cuisine of French Polynesia includes a significant array of fruits and vegetables especially sweet potato and coconut. Due to the island nature of the region, seafood is also very common. The "ahima’a", is a traditional Polynesian underground oven in which hot stones are placed inside to cook the ingredients. Notable dishes include Faraoa 'ipo, Poisson cru and Rēti'a.

Mayotte
The cuisine of Mayotte includes influences from European France, Portugal, the Arab world, and India. Common food includes rice as a daily staple staple mixed with root vegetables, plantains, fresh and dried fish, and milk from grated coconuts and meat. Notable dishes include Chahoula ya nadzi, rice boiled in water or coconut milk generally served for large meals and makarara a festive fried cake that is prepared into rolls of dough made of flour and coconut milk.

Specialties by season
French cuisine varies according to the season. In summer, salads and fruit dishes are popular because they are refreshing and produce is inexpensive and abundant. Greengrocers prefer to sell their fruits and vegetables at lower prices if needed, rather than see them rot in the heat. At the end of summer, mushrooms become plentiful and appear in stews throughout France. The hunting season begins in September and runs through February. Game of all kinds is eaten, often in elaborate dishes that celebrate the success of the hunt. Shellfish are at their peak when winter turns to spring, and oysters appear in restaurants in large quantities.

With the advent of deep-freeze and the air-conditioned hypermarché, these seasonal variations are less marked than before, but they are still observed, in some cases due to legal restrictions. Crayfish, for example, have a short season and it is illegal to catch them out of season. Moreover, they do not freeze well.

Foods and ingredients
French regional cuisines use locally grown vegetables, such as pomme de terre (potato), blé (wheat), haricots verts (a type of French green bean), carotte (carrot), poireau (leek), navet (turnip), aubergine (eggplant), courgette (zucchini), and échalotte (shallot).

French regional cuisines use locally grown fungi, such as truffe (truffle), champignon de Paris (button mushroom), chanterelle ou girolle (chanterelle), pleurote (en huître) (oyster mushrooms), and cèpes (porcini).

Common fruits include oranges, tomatoes, tangerines, peaches, apricots, apples, pears, plums, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, redcurrants, blackberries, grapes, grapefruit, and blackcurrants.

Varieties of meat consumed include poulet (chicken), pigeon (squab), canard (duck), oie (goose, the source of foie gras), bœuf (beef), veau (veal), porc (pork), agneau (lamb), mouton (mutton), caille (quail), cheval (horse), grenouille (frog), and escargot (snails). Commonly consumed fish and seafood include cod, canned sardines, fresh sardines, canned tuna, fresh tuna, salmon, trout, mussels, herring, oysters, shrimp and calamari.

Eggs often eaten as: omelettes, hard-boiled with mayonnaise, scrambled plain, scrambled haute cuisine preparation, œuf à la coque.

Herbs and seasonings vary by region, and include fleur de sel, herbes de Provence, olive, tarragon, rosemary, marjoram, lavender, thyme, fennel, and sage.

Fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as fish and meat, can be purchased either from supermarkets or specialty shops. Street markets are held on certain days in most localities; some towns have a more permanent covered market enclosing food shops, especially meat and fish retailers. These have better shelter than the periodic street markets.

Breakfast

Le petit déjeuner (breakfast) is traditionally a quick meal consisting of tartines (slices) of French bread with butter and honey or jam (sometimes brioche), along with café au lait (also called café crème), or black coffee, or tea and rarely hot chicory. Children often drink hot chocolate in bowls or cups along with their breakfasts. Croissants, pain aux raisins or pain au chocolat (also named chocolatine in the south-west of France) are mostly included as a weekend treat. Breakfast of some kind is always served in cafés opening early in the day.

There are also savoury dishes for breakfast. An example is le petit déjeuner gaulois or petit déjeuner fermier with the famous long narrow bread slices topped with soft white cheese or boiled ham, called mouillettes, which is dipped in a soft-boiled egg and some fruit juice and hot drink.

Another variation called le petit déjeuner chasseur, meant to be very hearty, is served with pâté and other charcuterie products. A more classy version is called le petit déjeuner du voyageur, where delicatessens serve gizzard, bacon, salmon, omelet, or croque monsieur, with or without soft-boiled egg and always with the traditional coffee/tea/chocolate along fruits or fruit juice. When the egg is cooked sunny-side over the croque-monsieur, it is called a croque-madame.

In Germinal and other novels, Émile Zola also mentioned the briquet: two long bread slices stuffed with butter, cheese and or ham. It can be eaten as a standing/walking breakfast, or meant as a "second" one before lunch.

In the movie Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, Philippe Abrams (Kad Merad) and Antoine Bailleul (Dany Boon) share together countless breakfasts consisting of tartines de Maroilles (a strong cheese) along with their hot chicory.

Lunch
Le déjeuner (lunch) is a two-hour mid-day meal or a one-hour lunch break. In some smaller towns and in the south of France, the two-hour lunch may still be customary. Sunday lunches are often longer and are taken with the family. Restaurants normally open for lunch at noon and close at 2:30 pm. Some restaurants are closed on Monday during lunch hours.

In large cities, a majority of working people and students eat their lunch at a corporate or school cafeteria, which normally serves complete meals as described above; it is not usual for students to bring their own lunch to eat. For companies that do not operate a cafeteria, it is mandatory for employees to be given lunch vouchers as part of their employee benefits. These can be used in most restaurants, supermarkets and traiteurs; however, workers having lunch in this way typically do not eat all three courses of a traditional lunch due to price and time constraints. In smaller cities and towns, some working people leave their workplaces to return home for lunch. An alternative, especially among blue-collar workers, is eating sandwiches followed by a dessert; both dishes can be found ready-made at bakeries and supermarkets at budget prices.

Dinner
Le dîner (dinner) often consists of three courses, hors d'œuvre or entrée (appetizers or introductory course, sometimes soup), plat principal (main course), and a cheese course or dessert, sometimes with a salad offered before the cheese or dessert. Yogurt may replace the cheese course, while a simple dessert would be fresh fruit. The meal is often accompanied by bread, wine and mineral water. Most of the time the bread would be a baguette which is very common in France and is made almost every day. Main meat courses are often served with vegetables, along with potatoes, rice or pasta. Restaurants often open at 7:30 pm for dinner, and stop taking orders between the hours of 10:00 pm and 11:00 pm. Some restaurants close for dinner on Sundays.

Beverages and drinks
In French cuisine, beverages that precede a meal are called apéritifs (literally: "that opens the appetite"), and can be served with amuse-gueules (literally: "mouth amuser"). Those that end it are called digestifs. During the meal, plates are served with water, wine or sometimes beer (choucroute and beer, for example).

 * Apéritifs

The apéritif varies from region to region: Pastis is popular in the south of France, Crémant d'Alsace in the eastern region. Champagne can also be served. Kir, also called blanc-cassis, is a common and popular apéritif-cocktail made with a measure of crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) topped up with white wine. The phrase kir royal is used when white wine is replaced with a Champagne wine. A simple glass of red wine, such as Beaujolais nouveau, can also be presented as an apéritif, accompanied by amuse-bouches. Some apéritifs can be fortified wines with added herbs, such as cinchona, gentian and vermouth. Trade names that sell well include Suze (the classic gentiane), Byrrh, Dubonnet, and Noilly Prat. Beer can also be an apéritif. Other drinks are fruit juices or syrups for children.

 * Digestifs

Digestifs are traditionally stronger, and include Cognac, Armagnac, Calvados, eau de vie and fruit alcohols.

Christmas
A typical French Christmas dish is turkey or capon, with chestnuts. Other common dishes are smoked salmon, oysters, caviar and foie gras. The Yule log (bûche de Noël) is a very French tradition during Christmas. Chocolate and cakes also occupy a prominent place for Christmas in France. This cuisine is normally accompanied by Champagne. Tradition says that thirteen desserts complete the Christmas meal in reference to the twelve apostles and Christ.

History
The modern restaurant has its origins in French culture. Prior to the late 18th century, diners who wished to "dine out" would visit their local guild member's kitchen and have their meal prepared for them. However, guild members were limited to producing whatever their guild registry delegated to them. These guild members offered food in their own homes to steady clientele that appeared day-to-day but at set times. The guest would be offered the meal table d'hôte, which is a meal offered at a set price with very little choice of dishes, sometimes none at all.

The first steps toward the modern restaurant were locations that offered "restorative" bouillons, or restaurants—these words being the origin of the name "restaurant". This step took place during the 1760s–1770s. These locations were open at all times of the day, featuring ornate tableware and reasonable prices. These locations were meant more as meal replacements for those who had "lost their appetites and suffered from jaded palates and weak chests."

In 1782 Antoine Beauvilliers, pastry chef to the future Louis XVIII, opened one of the most popular restaurants of the time—the Grande Taverne de Londres—in the arcades of the Palais-Royal. Other restaurants were opened by chefs of the time who were leaving the failing monarchy of France, in the period leading up to the French Revolution. It was these restaurants that expanded upon the limited menus of decades prior, and led to the full restaurants that were completely legalized with the advent of the French Revolution and the abolition of the guilds. This and the substantial discretionary income of the French Directory's nouveau riche helped keep these new restaurants in business.

Restaurant staff
Larger restaurants and hotels in France employ extensive staff and are commonly referred to as either the kitchen brigade for the kitchen staff or dining room brigade system for the dining room staff. This system was created by Georges Auguste Escoffier. This structured team system delegates responsibilities to different individuals who specialize in certain tasks. The following is a list of positions held both in the kitchen and dining rooms brigades in France:

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: French cuisine


text:
Five-spice powder

Five-spice powder is a spice mixture of five or more spices used predominantly in almost all branches of Chinese cuisine. The five flavors of the spices (sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and savory) refers to the five traditional Chinese elements. The addition of eight other spices creates thirteen-spice powder (十三香), which is used less commonly.

Ingredients

While there are many variants, a common mix is: Other recipes may contain anise seed, ginger root, nutmeg, turmeric, Amomum villosum pods (shārén 砂仁), Amomum cardamomum pods (báidòukòu 白豆蔻), licorice, Mandarin orange peel or galangal.
 * Star anise (bājiǎo 八角)
 * Cloves (dīngxiāng 丁香)
 * Chinese cinnamon (ròuguì 肉桂)
 * Sichuan pepper (huājiāo 花椒)
 * Fennel seeds (xiǎohuíxiāng 小茴香)

In Southern China, Cinnamomum loureiroi and Mandarin orange peel are commonly used as substitutes for Cinnamomum cassia and cloves respectively. These ingredients collectively produce southern five-spice powders' distinctive, slightly different flavor profile. In one study, the potential antioxidant capacities of Chinese five-spice powder (consisting of Szechuan pepper, fennel seed, cinnamon, star anise, and clove) with varying proportion of individual spice ingredients was investigated through four standard methods. The results suggest that clove is the major contributor to the high antioxidant capacities of the five-spice powder whereas the other four ingredients contribute to the flavor.

Use
Five spice may be used with fatty meats such as pork, duck or goose. It is used as a spice rub for chicken, duck, pork and seafood, in red cooking recipes, or added to the breading for fried foods. Five spice is used in recipes for Cantonese roasted duck, as well as beef stew. Canned spiced pork cubes is very popular as well. Five spice is used as a marinade for Vietnamese broiled chicken. The five-spice powder mixture has followed the Chinese diaspora and has been incorporated into other national cuisines throughout Asia.

In Hawaii, some restaurants place a shaker of the spice on each patron's table. A seasoned salt can be easily made by dry-roasting common salt with five-spice powder under low heat in a dry pan until the spice and salt are well mixed.

Five-spice powder can also add complexity and savoriness to sweets and savory dishes alike. It has a traditional use as an antiseptic and used to cure indigestion.

title: Five-spice powder