Fish or rare steak? Fruit or pastry? Soup and ham or roast and dessert?... In order to explore the favourite meal of the elderly, a large survey was conducted including 559 people older than 65 (AUPALESENS survey). Different categories of elderly were interviewed, including people who are living at home either without any assistance or with assistance, and people who are living in a nursing home.Each respondent completed a questionnaire designed to explore three dimensions, namely meal content, eater style and pickiness. Regarding meal content, respondents were asked to choose among broad categories of dishes (e.g., salad, soup, roast, stew, veggies, cheese, fruit, pastry…) the ones they would like to have for a daily meal. Regarding eater style, respondents’ preference was explored through 21 items such as “I prefer eating meat rather than eating fish”; “I would rather use butter than oil”… Finally, pickiness was assessed through the number of disliked products among a list of 72 products including raw foods (beef, veal, zucchinis, rice…) and dishes (paella, gratin Dauphinois…). In parallel, respondents completed a questionnaire on their health and nutritional state.Results revealed three main styles of eaters. The “meat & pastries” eaters prefer meat to fish, butter to oil, and can not do without a dessert at the end of their meal. The “roast & wine” eaters are close to the previous ones except that they are not fond of sweet foods. Rather, they welcome a glass of wine with their meal. The “fish & veggies” eaters prefer fish to meat, oil to butter. They appreciate vegetables, especially when steamed, and they reject ready-to-eat dishes. Similarly, result on meal content revealed that respondents are shared between those who favoured a copious meal (delicatessen, meat stew and potatoes, cake) and those who favoured a light meal (salad, ham or poultry, vegetables, possibly a fruit), with intermediate stages between. Finally, results showed that “fish & veggie” eaters tend to have a better nutritional state that the others and that pickiness is inversely correlated with nutritional state. The number of picky respondents also increases with dependency.To conclude, the questionnaires developed in this study proved to be an interesting tool to gather information about what elderly people favour in their meal in order to propose meals adapted to their preferences with a positive impact on their nutritional state.