h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I lived in Paris for two years, and I found out that it is impossible to get any kind of flavoured dessert jelly (that's jello, not jam, for any Americans consulting the guide). The best they can do is a kind of rendered gelatine that has a picture of a dripping cow's carcass on the label. Also, they have no concept of baked beans. It is possible to buy haricot beans in tomato sauce, but only in army surplus stores, as it is evidently a taste only acquired by soldiers. If you are partial to these items it is best to take them with you.
Eating in any kind of non-french fast-food chain is considered deeply touristic behaviour, as is sitting out on a bistro forecourt on the Champs Elysee, or liking the Eiffel Tower. If you must praise the city's architecture, stick to the Grande Arche at La Defense, of which Parisians are inexplicably proud.

And don't try to be vegetarian in Paris either. Beyond vegetables themselves, anything else has to be bought in a chemist. The French just don't get the concept. My mate, researcher 27130, is veggie and has lived in Paris for several years, so if you read this and need a survival strategy, post something on his page. He doesn't get on these pages much so I'm acting as his agent. I'm an omnivore, so Paris presents no problems to me. Quite the reverse, in fact.

Really? No quorn or soya? No Linda McCartney meals? Sounds like a good reason to go live there.!

Seriously though, it's a good point. They do quite a few bean stew type dishes, cassolet, but most of the ones I can think of have either sausages or lumps of ham in them.

What other food types can't you get in Paris? No proper custard for one.

"Proper" custard being poorly mixed, lumpy Bird's from a tin I suppose, instead of that fake stuff the French make from milk and eggs?!

And 27130 is Wonko the Sane. That's a new nickname. Something to do with losing his cookie, presumably something else you don't get in Paris.

As chauvinistic as I am going to sound, I suppose very few people in this planet do complain about the quality of French food. Who needs Jelly and Custard, both the horrible outcome of centuries of culinary barbary across the Channel? Well, I certainly don't.

Be as it may, a few British stores in Paris do sell the infamous above-mentioned products (and many other). You may want to take a look at Marks & Spencer (across "Le Printemps"), for example.