Today, I went to a grocery store in order to make some shopping. But the sections of this store made so obvious the cultural gap between France and the US that I had to post about this. First, I saw de la confiture. I was very happy to see that you have fine products in your grocery stores.
This is typically what you eat where you’re on holidays in the countryside. You get up, awake au chant du coq and you walk or ride your bicyclette to the nearest village. There, you buy some fresh bread, ideally a baguette and not some sort of limp and floppy pre-frozen bread like this.
French, French—et mon cul, c’est du poulet? You also take some fresh butter made up by a farmer and not some weird butter-flavoured spray. Then, you go back home with your local newspaper folded under your arm.
There, you cut your bread into thick slices. You love these moments of calm when the rising sun caresses your skin while the birds are singing. Then, in a delicate gesture, you take a knife to spread butter on the bread and add some confiture with a spoon. And you eat it all, enjoying the orgasm growing inside of you.
A few moments later, your kids join you. Actually, they prefer Nutella because it’s sweeter. Once in a while, yeah, you let them spread Nutella on their bread. It’s a bit fat, but they’re French too, so they won’t abuse it. I mean, they’re not like those American people who make excesses all the time, are they?
Those American people… Their food is just disgu… Hey! No judgment allowed on foreign cultures. No opinion, Julien. Give the facts. Only the facts. That’s what your internship is about: learning from American journalists so as to report the facts and not your own opinion. If American people really want to eat a soup made of powdered cheese and potatoes, that’s their very right. Sure, it makes you nauseous, that’s a fact, but you’re fine as long as they don’t force you to eat it.
And yes, their oil spray and their liquid eggs can look like a heresy to all the supporters of good food and natural stuff, but deal with it. In fact, how can you resist the delightful sight of these macaronis trickling with cheese?
Well, you have thrown up. Big deal. Never mind. You should make a meal of your own. Let’s move to the fresh products section. Don’t these fresh vegetables look tasty? And have a look at the moisturizing system. You don’t have this in France, don’t you? You just let them dry all day long. You see: American people can make good things too.
And I’m sure you’ll take some pancakes. Your French crêpes are not that much enjoyable, aren’t they? I can see you’re looking with envy at those pineapple packs. They seem convenient, right? You don’t have this in Paris, for sure. Really? You have to carry the whole pineapple if you want to eat some? Modern stuff can really help sometimes.
Let’s leave now. Do you want a copy of this magazine with Justin Bieber on the cover?
Oh no, please, don’t throw up again.
America really should have stayed out of WWII.
C’etait une rire et moitie. Funnier than Jacques Tati or L.F. Celine. I would love for you to share your views on the U.S. election cycles and candidate marketing processes next.
Not everyone in the world can be on a strike for a living.
I knew the French Intern thing was a sock puppet for one of the Stranger writers to troll with.
I consider that suspicion confirmed by this supposed Frenchman using the word nauseous when he mean t to say nauseated.
Only a shitty American writer with a JC education would make that mistake.
Nice try l’etranger. Back to the drawing board.
Lame.
@54 Ha!
i love this shit! funny post! but you will learn stereotyping goes many ways and its a bit more complicated than the obvious. most of us here know about the shitty food etc, and how perfect the french are (ah hem) but what about where shit overlaps or goes in the opposite of what you expect? anyway i look forward to more of your funny notes.
Learn where to shop. Seattle actually has some of the best bread in the world, widely available. There is plenty mediocre food in France. That one can buy canned green beans there, that are no better than any American brand, says it all.
@11 is right. and walmart for 8 hours.
Actually, come to think of it, I think French Intern should to a round of eating at local French joints, and judge them on how awesome or not awesome they are…
Ah, give the guy a break. He’s French! I’m sure he’s under a lot of pressure to live up to cultural stereotypes and engage in a lot of pompous shit-talking about the U.S. Julien, you might check out a farmer’s market sometime. That whole thing you wrote about the fresh bread, fresh butter, and walking home with a newspaper under your arm? We can do that here too (except the part about the sun caressing your skin, since we’re in Seattle).
And if I can bring the snark for a minute: If you’re here to learn from American journalists to report the facts and not your own opinion, why are you interning for the Stranger?
Adored it. Want to hang out with him for days and days. Could be that I’m a foreigner too and was kind of startled by some of the finds in American grocery stores. Could be that French makes me hot (talk about a cliche).
That being said, yes of course there are many lovely farmer’s markets and little bakeries and etc, etc. The post was not a blanket dismissal, he did not claim that there is no good food in your entire city. I laughed out loud at a few of the responses here – there’s a reason for the stereotype of Americans taking themselves too seriously!
Looks like every shitty French banlieu I’ve ever visited. No wonder they riot so much and love torching card.
Ya the French have great food and some American food is really bad but back away from the Justin Bieber he is 100% Canadian BAD!
Mmmm! Poutine!
@60, France has stores that make Walmart look like 7-11.
Okay – I thought this was hilarious, but it immediately made me think that this French kid doesn’t actually exist, which hadn’t crossed my mind initially (although it should have).
@17 for the win
@41 It’s not Chelsea. Unless you were trying to be funny. In which case – fail.
Ee is taking ze piss wiss us. Ee is meta. Ee is hero.
geez, the kid’s been here half a week and already Mudede has corrupted him.
Julien:
You ought to read “In Defense of Food” and “Food Rules” by Michael Pollan. He draws a distinction between “food” and “edible foodlike substances.” I’m sure France has some edible foodlike substances of its own, but the U.S. has raised it to a fine art.
However, I must say that Velveeta Shells and Cheese is one of my favorite comfort foods. To keep myself from eating it all the time, I restrict myself to buying one box once a month.
IMO, any country that puts cassoulet and venison pâté in their version of an MRE has earned the right to kvetch a bit about gross American mass-produced processed food products.
Some of my best memories of eating great food come from working at Pike Street Market selling produce at “Sosio’s”. Chefs would come in early and buy a box of Haricot Vert and invite me to lunch to try the dish they were making with the beans that day. I would always take home Chanterelle mushrooms and sauté them for dinner. The amount of fantastic food I was exposed to while working there was fantastic. I really miss that hard work and the experience of learning about food and being able to share with people from all over the world that I got to interact with while selling produce.
You don’t have to go far to experience good food. Seattle has great food.
@71, not when they have all of those same gross mass-produced garbage foods themselves, and more. Did you not look at @7’s link? We got nothing on the French for junk food.
@67 – The same for me! I assumed the French kid was real, but now, I’m not so sure…
@40 No, you’re right. It’s a way of saying “bullshit” – about the bread being labelled “French”, in this case.
Successful troll is successful.
Your tongue-in-cheek post was funny, Julien. However, if you were a real Frenchman you would know that real French families use convenience foods on a daily basis. Knorr soup mix–ubiquitous. That Bear Creek stuff looks tastier to me. The mom in one family I nannied for fed her kids instant mashed potatoes for lunch every day. They buy packages of toast! And then they smear butter and jam on the cold, dry, prefab toast! They use instant coffee all the time, often made with hot water from the tap. The other mom I lived with used to mix raw frozen vegetables and mayonnaise and put them in frozen pastry cups for a “fancy” appetizer. And on and on. And this was the early eighties. I assume processed stuff is even more common now. Yes, they used to have better bread, but now even American supermarkets have artisan loaves that are at least decent. Tomatoes. That is the only thing that is consistently better in French stores than American, but even then it’s not that hard to get decent produce these days. So, yeah, you must be a sock puppet. C’est dommage, Julien. Tu es si mignon.
Don’t dis mac-n-cheese. The Velveeta stuff isn’t the best, but as a concept “cheese dripping off macaroni” is close to oral sex in it’s brilliance.
Eh, come on. None of you love to visit chain/big brand supermarkets in foreign countries? I love doing it and looking at what we all have in common when it comes to crap we put in our bodies. Italian supermarkets typically have fantastic cheese and deli counters, but they’re also packed with mass-produced cookies, sugary cereals, and candy. I think it’s a great way to bond with a new place — shop where *most people actually shop.* I love knowing what kind of junk food a country likes to eat, because it feels less self-conscious.
Doesn’t mean I don’t also love the tiny mom-and-pop operations as well as the lovely homey bakeries and open-air markets, blah, blah.
@18: I was pretty sure the deepfried Mars Bar was a Scottish invention.
Three things:
He’s really an intern if his post is three times longer than the average lazy Stranger staff member.
Need to get Julien to comment about his take on Vegan food.
Toss him over to I, Anonymous to get his feet wet.
Can we get a poll up in here? Not for whether Julien is real or fake, but for which Stranger staffer is using the sock puppet.
I like the part where he described morning time in France. Lovely.
And I agree with what he says about American food in general, but, come on! This is Seattle, not Tampa (no offense, Floridians, but your grocery stores are abysmal). We have the best groceries, butchers, cheesemongers, farmers markets, cafes, etc., in the country. We are want for nothing fresh and delicious here. So his berating of our foodstuffs would work better in New York, or some other city that doesn’t offer easy access for all people to fresh foods.
Sock Puppets!
How can the French tell what they’re eating when everything tastes like a cigarette?
Funny post. Then again I’m a weird American who likes her toast with Vegemite and butter or with grapefruit marmalade served alongside her doppio espresso. Well done.
julien is indeed real, and iffen you don’t believe me, go to slog happy tonight, you philistines.
Gloria – shopping in grocery stores in other countries is literally one of my favorite things to do when I travel. Something about the combination of the familiar/everyday environment with the unfamiliar foods. Plus, I have a huge sweet tooth so love seeing/buying all the different kinds of sweets.
@78: sweet post.
As for the Mr. Bieber, he is of course Canadian, not American, and even sings in French. And French folks aren’t really in any position to be talking shit about anybody else’s pop music. Ever heard of Lorie? Or the inexplicably massive Mylene Farmer, who has sold 25 million records in France?
Though I do have a lifelong massive crush on Francoise Hardy and all the ye-ye girls. And just about my favorite band is French, Watoo Watoo.
But that’s not what we’re talking about here, is it? We’re talking about trashy magazines. No such thing in cultured France, right? Except for Closer, Voici, Public, or for teens, Phosphor…. Plenty of trash culture in France if you know where to look.
I am so with you on the magazines. I try to avoid celebrity news but the position of those shitty gossip rags at the checkout aisle of the grocery store makes it impossible to not know about (celebrity I’ve never heard of identified by first name only)’s shocking breakup with (other celebrity I’ve never heard of identified by first name only). Gossip is okay only if its both true and about someone you either know personally or have a relevant stake in (like a public official caught in a form of wrongdoing that actually affects you). I do not appreciate having this indecent, irrelevant-to-my-life, lowbrow trash shoved in my face every time I go to buy food!
@89: Merci, Fnarf. You’re not so bad yourself.
I do believe he was making a joke about the fantasies many Americans have about life in France i.e. biking to near countryside villages for banquettes and jam. I’ve never met a French person who thought that life in France was more of a paradise than Americans think it is. Not saying they’re altogether unpretentious.
c’mon, no one actually buys those loves of french bread in a plastic bag, right?!
@83: I’m with you on Floridian grocery stores. I once had a five-minute go-round with a cashier at a Publix over a) what the hell balsamic vinegar was and b) she wasn’t sure if my WA ID was real because “I never seen them zeroes with lines in ’em.”
So, Julien, you’ve probably noticed by now that some Americans have a hard time laughing at themselves, and don’t get subtle humour (Fnarf: seriously? You’re getting defensive about this?). They like to dish it out, but they don’t like to take it. Secretly, most of them agree with you. And many of them will surprise you.
The paragraph with the bread and birdsong and sun-caressed skin was great. The whole post was great, and very Stranger-esque, like a combination of Mudede and Lindy West, but with a French twist. I love it!
@95 – of course we like to dish it out and not take it. America is the Top of the world, not the Bottom.
Newsflash: the French are snobs.
I’m with Fnarf, France hasn’t won a Eurovision contest since 1977.
It’s not offensive as it’s obvious that it’s tongue-in-cheek. However, it’s just a tired and played out idea and while I did find it mildly amusing the overall take wasn’t creative enough to make it worth going there.
Julien – don’t mind the cranky-pants, keep trying. But try to get a little more original.
Hey Julien at least in America you could become president instead of having 7 generations of family working as janitors in some god awful banlieu. Never met an Arab or African in Paris who didn’t want to get the fuck out and come to America.
So welcome. You have a lot of Seattle queers in a tither wet dreaming about sucking you off in Le Marais at 2 am.
Peter F @40:
He’s saying essentially “If the bread in that picture is French, then my ass is chicken.”
Equivalent to “I’m a monkey’s uncle.”
dirac @42:
Uh, what? Look up Jean-Marie le Pen and his Front National party. They’ve been garnering really astonishing levels of support for their nativist policy, which includes making the death penalty more common, moving away from the EU, anti-abortion and anti-immigration platforms. Sounds pretty Tea Party-esque to me. Le Pen got 16.9% of the votes in the first round presidential election in 2002 and made it to the second round, where he was defeated by Chirac, and 10% in the first round in 2007 with 83.8% turnout (he was defeated by both Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal and didn’t make it to the second round).
What’s more, many pundits attribute the rise of the FN party to a growing backlash against immigration from non-European countries. As far as I know, Le Pen hasn’t suggested that the immigrants are beheading folks in the Loire valley on a regular basis, but if you don’t see any parallels to the Tea Party in FN, I think you’re not looking very hard.
Most of Europe is struggling with immigration problems and the attendant backlash (wearing burqas to public school and so on), and the nativist parties are the ones shouting the loudest. They get more attention than I’m comfortable with.
@88: Yes, exactly! And I totally agree on the sweets front. When you’re on vacation, candy just makes sense — ready to eat, indulgent, cheap, small.