French trains and food: The best part of train journeys is in the eating no?

Why do train journeys make me hungry!

Packing food along while travelling is one of the things I am unapologetically passionate about. Whether it be hikes, road trips, or long train rides, the first order of business is: what do I eat to make this journey more pleasurable?

Back when I lived in India, train journeys were few and far between for me. Since I moved to France, I have taken way more trains in a year than I did in all the years I lived in Delhi. As some of you already know, my husband and I shuttle between Paris and Toulouse. This has meant that longish train journeys every couple of months have now become routine for us.

Travel time by train between Paris and Toulouse is 4-5 hours each way (depending on the rail provider). While some people look forward to fantastic views, or to finishing a book, or project or even taking power naps while on the train, the best part of train journeys for me, is the food! Especially since, lets be real, not every train journey takes you across stunning vistas. That is perhaps not saying much, considering the fact that the best part of most outings for me, is the food.

Eating on trains has a rich history with meals being served on trains as far back at the 1860s. Honestly, how eating on trains has evolved as an activity could be a socio-economic treatise in itself, putting a mirror up to how man’s relationship with food, time and travel has shifted. However, in this letter, I am not getting into that.

This one is all about casually indulging my passing introspection. Why do I always associate train journeys with food? In this letter, I discuss this and also, how my relationship with French train food has evolved over time.

To each their own. My potato chips and my husband’s ham from his favourite charcutier

My first French train food experience: The wagon bar

In my very first month after moving to France, I was lucky enough to have travelled a lot, both via trains and cars. In one of my very first trains, I got to experience what le bar on a French train is like.

What I imagined a wagon bar would be, was far from the reality. I imagined it as this appetising place with food piled up high and sparkling wine glasses. It wasn’t. What it was, was a sanitised, almost clinical-looking coach which was empty save for a tiny bar with a very smiley gentleman at the helm. (This is in the south of France where people usually always look like they’re in a good mood.)

There were a couple of tables and chairs strewn around near the windows. At this wagon bar, you could get your food to go or eat right there. Since I wanted the whole experience, I got myself coffee and a sandwich, and sat by the window.

My French husband got nothing and just looked at me with an I-told-you-so expression. He had never ever eaten at the train wagon bar in his life. In fact, a popular joke goes that if you want to try a bad sandwich in France, just get the SNCF sandwich. And I have to agree. (Trains in France are run by SNCF, the country’s national state-owned railway company.)

While I patted myself on my back for introducing him to yet another aspect of French life that he took extremely for granted, I had to confess, the wagon bar was not my thing. The quality of food and the ambience the one time I tried it, was meh enough that I never did it again.

However, in recent years, SNCF has been trying to revamp their offerings, collaborating with star chefs, upping their food quality and having more variety of food on board. Typical menu include classics like salad, quiche, sandwiches, sometimes hot foods such as rice bowls or pasta. Snacks would be olives, cashews or teeny tiny bags of tortilla or potato chips.

Learnt my lesson: Converted to takeaways

Since the SNCF wagon bar burst my starry-eyed new-implant-in France rosy bubble about what to expect from food in the literal train, I started doing what every French person does. Just get food-to-go from one of the many cafés and supermarkets in the railway station.

If you are counting on doing this, remember that not all railway stations have good food options. Plus food at the station is always marked-up in price. So, if you are unsure/ unfamiliar with the railway station, better to buy some food ahead of time.

Would you like to know more about how and where to shop for food to eat on French trains? Or are you interested in train dining etiquettes in France? Comment or reply to this email and let me know if I should write a blog post about it?

Packing my own lunch/ snacks: The art of the train sandwich

After having lived in France for 3 years and after having taken innumerable trains, I now just prefer to bring along home-made sandwiches and salads! When you get to a certain age, you just realise that life is too short for eating sub-par meals on trains. And I always pack sides. Don’t you agree that the highlight of most foods, are the sides?

While on the subject, I usually always get potato chips as my side item. And what does my husband like as a side did you ask? In true French fashion, he packs up charcuterie and hard cheeses to be eaten as sides. All I will say is, my husband is not the only French man I have seen delicately separating the thinly sliced charcuterie and pairing it with a giant bite of his jambon burre sandwich.

The latter by the way, has got to be the most simple yet delicious sandwich in the world. Actually I am planning to write a whole article about it on the lines of this article I wrote about why I love croissants so much.

Ambition is packing up a whole tomato and thinking you would eat it as a snack. Pragmatism is spotting a cookie shop and accepting that is never going to happen.

What might explain my French train food excitement

What is it about journeys and the strong urge to pack snacks along for even the shortest distance I travel? Yes, when it comes to how we consume, and the emotions we attach to food, one could probably write a whole book. Like, this beautiful volume by David Sutton on Remembrance of Repasts: An Anthropology of Food and Memory.

Here are some of my own theories as to what could explain how I come to associate food with train journeys.

The result of a Pavlovian association that goes back to Indian trains?

If you ever travel in India, and are looking for an experience unlike any other, I suggest you to take a train, preferably a Rajdhani or Shatabdi. Depending on the train company, you could spend the whole transit munching on a variety of foods. It’s all paid for by your less than €5 ticket.

And yeah, it is freshly-made, hot foods. It can be as elaborate as a tray of rice, dal, curry and yoghurt or as simple as a hot puff pastry with stuffed hard-boiled eggs to be eaten with ketchup.

It’s hard to believe. The first time, my husband got on a long-ish train journey with me in India, he was impressed, nay, he was flabbergasted by the amount and quality of food. There was a cup of hot soup with breadsticks, then milk-tea with samosa. The evening finished with ice-cream 30 minutes before we reached our destination. The food was the highlight for him from the whole train journey.

When asked about one of the recent train travels my parents did, they began their answer by reporting on the quality of food. Why did they start with the food, I asked. They supplied, there’s nothing much to do on the train, except talk, play card games and eat. Now, do you see what I am talking about when I talk about food in trains?

Punctuated journeys don’t seem so long

Perhaps if most of my train journey ended in holidays or vacations, I would be focusing not on the transit itself but the destination. However, as I mentioned above, these days, I take the train mostly to go between one of my home bases to another. Waiting for me, at the other end of the train travel, is not rest and relaxation, but the usual grind of work and home. My husband and I travel so often with trains now that we have our very own rituals for before catching the train, during the transit and after the journey ends.

Like with anything else in life, food is one of the best ways to break up the monotony of a long, uneventful, period of time. Eating together while watching a show (thank God for AirPod shared audio), or sharing a snack while side eyeing and silently complaining about a loud fellow-passenger, or just sampling each other’s snack preferences: these are all moments that punctuate an otherwise dull, and as is true in our case, routine, voyage.

Above everything else, there is something to be said about just experiencing eating, drinking and doing mundane things while on a metal box that is moving at the speed of 320 km/h. Is it just me, but the primal part of my brain perhaps just can’t grasp just how magical that is? A modern, technological form of magic, but something my inner child still relishes in, I suppose.

Anyway, tell me I am not the only one with this fixation on food during journeys. Do train journeys whet your appetite too? What kind of snacks and lunches do you like to eat when you are travelling on trains?