French haute cuisine restauranteurs are upset by revelations that many other restaurants are using frozen ingredients and even serving entire factory-frozen dishes. The Washington Post reports that “a chunk of tuna cooked Provencal style with an attractive ratatouille on the side, for instance, can be bought in a restaurant-supply factory for $4, stored in the freezer indefinitely and sold to a diner for $17 after three minutes in the microwave.”

Some Parisian restauranteurs are spearheading an effort to create a system to distinguish restaurants that use all fresh ingredients from other types of eating establishments. “Alain Fontaine, who runs Le Mesturet restaurant near the Opera in Paris — and who cooks his dishes from scratch — lamented the growing tendency not only because it cheats diners but also because it means that everybody ends up eating the same mass-produced food with the same homogenized tastes,” according to the Washington Post.

The Washington Post reports on frozen food in French cuisine.