Excerpt, with rendition: "It may be hard to fathom why [a French-man or -woman] would leave a country with better food, more reliable transport, longer lunch breaks, and more generous social security.
But the answer is simple: most have come to find work."
I hit the floor when I heard this: the French leaving France to find work?
...and here's what a practicioner of French cuisine has to say about his Parisian cousins (Pepe, pay attention here):
"At Les Halles, and let me repeat here, the best, the most authentic frog pond in the whole damn U.S. of A., almost every single cook in its thirteen-year history has been a rural Mexican with no previous cooking experience... they [Bourdain's Mexican chefs] are, pound for pound, some of the best cooks of cuisine bourgeoise in America. I would proudly put them up against any cheese-eating, long-lunch-taking, thirty-two-hour-a-week-working socialist clock-puncher from across the water. Any day. They'd [again, the Mexican cooks] mop the floor with them."*
That's strong praise...but probably very well justified. Even Chinese restaurants, here in Seattle, are finding that not every Peking duck is best roasted by a Wang. Some are crispiest of all when done by a Juan. When a job is a meaningful step to a better life, it seems that one is better motivated to care for the effort and have more stomach for the onerous.....which is perhaps one reason why I was a much better cook at 25 than I am now :)
Actually, I think there are many young (or not so young) Francais and Francaises leaving the socialist-with-wine-and-cheese paradise for the despised Anglo-Saxon lands, in search of a job. Once they settle down, though, my hunch is that they feel guilty about it, so take it on baseball-playing, french-fry barfing, Coors-guzzling, fat & idiotic Ricains. Oh well, surely Monsieur Freud would have an explanation for that...
Apparently, it is Juif.
ReplyDeleteCULTURAL REVOLUTION IN FRANCE?
ReplyDeleteExcerpt, with rendition: "It may be hard to fathom why [a French-man or -woman] would leave a country with better food, more reliable transport, longer lunch breaks, and more generous social security.
But the answer is simple: most have come to find work."
I hit the floor when I heard this: the French leaving France to find work?
...and here's what a practicioner of French cuisine has to say about his Parisian cousins (Pepe, pay attention here):
ReplyDelete"At Les Halles, and let me repeat here, the best, the most authentic frog pond in the whole damn U.S. of A., almost every single cook in its thirteen-year history has been a rural Mexican with no previous cooking experience... they [Bourdain's Mexican chefs] are, pound for pound, some of the best cooks of cuisine bourgeoise in America. I would proudly put them up against any cheese-eating, long-lunch-taking, thirty-two-hour-a-week-working socialist clock-puncher from across the water. Any day. They'd [again, the Mexican cooks] mop the floor with them."*
*Anthony Bourdain, Les Halles Cookbook: Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking, (New York and London, 2004: Bloomsbury), 12.
That's strong praise...but probably very well justified. Even Chinese restaurants, here in Seattle, are finding that not every Peking duck is best roasted by a Wang. Some are crispiest of all when done by a Juan.
ReplyDeleteWhen a job is a meaningful step to a better life, it seems that one is better motivated to care for the effort and have more stomach for the onerous.....which is perhaps one reason why I was a much better cook at 25 than I am now :)
Actually, I think there are many young (or not so young) Francais and Francaises leaving the socialist-with-wine-and-cheese paradise for the despised Anglo-Saxon lands, in search of a job. Once they settle down, though, my hunch is that they feel guilty about it, so take it on baseball-playing, french-fry barfing, Coors-guzzling, fat & idiotic Ricains. Oh well, surely Monsieur Freud would have an explanation for that...
ReplyDelete