I couldn't help but notice this little news nugget on the BBC today. Our pal, French President Jacques Chirac, has been overheard commenting on British cusine. Apparently, he was overheard saying, in a conversation with the German and Russian leaders, Gerhard Schroeder and Vladimir Putin:
"One cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad,"
Jacques goes on to add:
"The only thing they (the English) have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow disease,"
and finishes with:
"After Finland, it is the country with the worst food."
Now, I can't comment on Finnish cuisine, though I'm sure it's lovely, but I would take umbridge with Mr Chirac's assertion that we British have never contributed to European agriculture. Surely we contributed hugely by booting the Germans out of glorious French farmland, so that fat, rich French farmers could get on with the important task of blockading ferry ports with their heavily subsidised trucks and BMWs? Or maybe it was because we we haven't been dumping enough of our share of subsidised quotas onto the world market to undercut impoverished third world farmers?
Of course, not that I'd expect Mr Chirac to actually talk any sense or view the world from a non-French standpoint or anything. After all, one cannot trust a people who can't even run a fucking online game!
Monday 4 July 2005
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Firstly, Dave, your opener represents the creme de la creme of Google targeted linkage, and for this I envision Eastern European Angels will douse your corpse in their honey dew slickness before lifting you unto Heaven for an eternity of On Demand AssTrology!
ReplyDeleteChirac is a prick, a burbling cheese eating surrender monkey dressed in a suit and still smarting from Trafalgar and the fact the Eurostar terminates in Waterloo.
We have great food, from all over the world. From the bastion of the Steak & Ale pie through to little bits of nonsense that cost a bloody fortune. We also have eggs cooked in nitrogen and porridge with the French staple in it.
The French hate us because we made them have Craig David at their Live8 gig. Oh-hi-hoh!
I find French food in general to be pretty good but all on a very familiar theme. There's little experimentation with incorporating other cultures into the mix, such as there is in the UK. Do you think a Frenchman would be at home with an Indian menu? Assuming they had finished complaining about the wine list.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very secular country that has admirable traits in food, like how they spend much longer and have better meals at lunch while the Brits - by contrast - choose instead to be a productive nation and an effective workforce instead.
More than anything else though, the standard complaint about British food is just a stereotypical ancient criticism which they've been saying for years since it largely used to be true. However the UK is a very different place today, the TV is covered in celebrity chef programmes and the range and breadth of the food service industry is astounding. I can say that pretty confidently given that I live in Crouch End, a renowned hotspot of restaurants.
I live on a road which as among it's number; a traditional English pub restaurant specialising in steaks, tex mex and burgers. A family-run Italian restaurant with the staff and premisis gorgeously turned out in traditional decoration and atire. A trendy and very busy vietnamese restaurant which is generally rammed with actors and other celebs. A high-class general ango-style (incl. French) restaurant cum wine bar and at least three general Indian type sit-down and takeaway restaurants at the other end of the street.
Now you try to get something to eat in Paris that isn't a fucking steak with mushrooms and a red wine sauce. Chirac is talking shit and the French are a bunch of lazy backwards communists that really shouldn't lecture progressive and productive countries like Great Britain about food or they might wind up finding out how little they really know about world cuisine.
P.S. To give you how much of a clue Chirac has, he bigs up American (junk) food in general.
MWHUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
ReplyDeleteMy god, what a result. Interestingly put in this article, this might actually force the French to face up to their problems. There wont be any Olympics from the sky to artificially cure your unemployment woes. It's time to sort yourself out.
ReplyDeleteBack to the subject of this blog - the above linked article also mentions something I didn't know. France leads Europe when it comes to treatment for depression. Well, I guess the food can't be that great eh?