What did french ppl eat in the 1800 or around the time napoleon bonaparte was emporer?

Question

can u guys help

Answer 1

Dr Papirini's answer is very good. There is another item you really ought to add. The process of canning food was developed in order to feed Napoleon's armies. Check this out from DelMonte's website:

"Canning started in jars. The process was invented in France in 1795 by Nicholas Appert, a chef who was determined to win the prize of 12,000 francs offered by Napoleon for a way to prevent military food supplies from spoiling. Appert canned meats and vegetables in jars sealed with pitch and by 1804 opened his first vacuum-packing plant. It was a French military secret that soon leaked across the English Channel.

In 1810 Peter Durance, an Englishman, patented the use of metal containers for canning, and by the next year others had opened factories. The troops that faced off at Waterloo had canned rations."
http://www.delmonte.com/news/cans1/body.htm

Also check out this blogspot:
http://18thccuisine.blogspot.com/

It's dedicated to French colonial cooking. That may give you additional insight into what they ate in the motherland. Here's what they say:

"Explore with me 18thC French cuisine as a habitante in Nouvelle France may have cooked. After the F&I War, and again after the Revolutionary War, habitantes were surrounded and overrun by Anglo and other American influences. By the end of the 18thC, new foods and new methods of cooking would change her culture forever."

Answer 2

Bread, bread, and more bread. And wine.

For most of the population, bread, flour being the most important commodity a peasant needed to live, was the central staple to their diets for centuries; most other foods, like meats, fruits and vegetables, were usually secondary commodities for the wealthier classes, particularly in the cities. Bread was so important that the raising or lowering of bread or flour prices could be the difference between a happy country and a discontent country - and in the case of Louis XVI and his ministers, the result was total revolution.

Wine, of course, needs little explanation. In some cases wine was actually cheaper than bread, if you knew where to look.