What is a French 17 course menu?

Answer 1

There are not even reception menus with 10 courses, or rarely so.

At most, if you count everything, like the coffee, you have 11:

1. hors-d'œuvre, apéritif, amuse-gueules, amuse-bouches, mises en bouche (different terms for the same thing, served about 15-30 minutes before the actual meal, to wet the appetite)
2. potage (soup)
3. relevé (quite obsolete now, as it presumes the potage was dull)
4. entrée (one course, rarely two; if so, probably a cold and a warm one)
5. plat de poisson (fish course, optional)
6. plat principal (main course, one is grilled meat if more than one course)
7. salade (green salad to help the digestion and prepare for the dessert)
8. plateau de fromage (tray of different regional cheese)
9. dessert
10. café (an espresso, maybe with a chocolate square or a shortbread)
11. pousse-café (so-called digestive liquor such as cognac or armagnac)

You can get your count higher with the entremets, which are very light, delicate and small dishes served between courses, like half a sliced fruit, a small soufflé, or a lime colonel (one scoop of sorbet in vodka), usually served after the most fatty courses. The pretended goal is to "dissolve" the fat and prepare the stomach for the next course by giving it a small relief. The trou normand is a shot of calvados (a hard 40° / 80% proof apple brandy from Normandy) that is supposed to have the same effect, but they shouldn't count as a course, it's just a small shot on its own.

In addition, reception menus frequently start with a course of shellfish, such as raw oysters or caviar. A dozen of oysters per person is the traditional way to start the New Year's Eve meal, for instance. "Small" dishes such as snails, a grape-stuffed quail or a roasted squab also make a course on their own, and can be present in a menu as they are deemed too small to interfere with the roast or dish featured in the main course.

You can also repeat some of these dishes, like several entrées or meat dishes, as long as the succession of dishes makes sense for the meal.

In any case, there is no official 17-course menu structure, if a chef wants to compose a 17-course menu, he does it freely according to the persons present or to the theme of the meal.

The science of nutrition has reduced by half the number of traditional courses and reduced the number of dishes in heavy sauce that required all these intermediate restorative courses and drinks.

A Sunday family lunch can still go on for well over 2 hours, depending on how many people are invited, but it's becoming rarer.

Edit: Looking at the large number of questions about the 17-course menu, I think I know what went wrong, the confusion most likely stems from Georges Auguste Escoffier's reference book on classical French cuisine, Le Guide culinaire. This book has 17 chapters describing the different elements of French cuisine, like soups, egg dishes, and so on, but it does not constitute at all a menu or the structure of a French classical menu.