Only 57%? Sounds about 10-20% too low to me. And is there any coincidence with the number of Hienz ketchup flavors?

Bush should do everything he can to remove France from the UN Security Council and/or remove their veto. Replace them with India or Japan.

Do you suppose politicians in France ask "why do they hate us"?

Robert: No, that phrase only applies to Americans. It would lose all value to the left if it were applied to all sides. ("Americans are attacking us in Fallujah, but shouldn't we ask ourselves why they hate us?")

The rest of the world marches in protest against America. Americans never march in protest against others in the world. American TV, which only records the anti-American protests, is watched worldwide. This may all be to America's everlasting credit, but it does make a practical difference.

Do you suppose politicians in France ask "why do they hate us"?

Well, if they're as stupid as ours, they'll come up with the answer "they hate our freedom." And rename pomme frites "egalite frites."

Americans never march in protest against others in the world.

Not true.
And even if it were true, isn't that stridently anti-American? Aren't there governments in the world worth protesting?

American TV, which only records the anti-American protests

That American TV only exists in your fevered dreams.

Angie:

No one believes the French free.

ha! :)

"No one?" Bravo, Angelina!

oj--

They are free in ways I can't say in a family blog. Ooh, la, and la, baby!

Oh, great, now CGI effects are starting to talk back to us.

For what it's worth, Ms. Jolie, surveys consistently find that Americans have sex more often than the French.

Yes, and you eat more too--just not as well.

Ms. Jolie:

The greatest meal I've ever had was had in Paris. We've traveled quite a way from "free", however.

I think that the number on seeing that France is our enemy is too low. I think the Administration needs to do more to emphasize that French policy is centered around opposing American power. If that does not make them our enemy, I do not know what would.

We need to sharpen our differences with Froggie and push them into a corner. We can do a lot to isolate and impoverish them. Just emphasising that they are our are enimies and that it is dangerous for Americans to be in France will hurt their tourisim and luxury goods buisnesses.

Our Air force and Navy need to track and harass their forces movements around the world as we used to do for the Soviets. We need to make a stink at the UN every time they go off on an adventure in Africa as they have in the Ivory Coast.

They need to learn that life in the cold is poor and miserable.

No one has ever super-sized a French meal.

oj,

Go to Alsace and eat in a winstube and you'll see portions that will make your head swim.

Robert,

France has less force projection capacity than the Girl Scouts of South Brooklyn. A decent-sized Long Island yacht club has enough naval firepower to blockade all their harbors.

You are right about making a public stink every time they leave the Hexagon.

Bart:

Of course, they're German get.

Supersized McDonald's fat and sugar filled meals are something to be PROUD of?? Okaaaaaaaaay...

Put a hamburger, fries, and shake in front of someone and tell them they can trade it for frog food and you'll get no takers.

"Frog food." Where have you eaten in France? Actually, there are plenty of people would prefer a French meal in a good restaurant to fast food crap. Just because you wouldn't doesn't mean that there would be "no takers."

oj,

You really don't know anything about food do you?

Anybody who would pick a Big Mac over a slice of very average pate de campagne at an out of the way small town bistro in the backwoods of the Dordogne is too stupid and ignorant for words to describe.

Bart:

If there were a market for that kind of junk there'd be fast pate places all over America. There isn't.

Sadly, Americans are notorious for their ignorance of the pleasures of the table, almost as bad as the peoples of the British Isles. I don't think I've had a Big Mac in 5 years. Virtually, all really good food in America is from cuisines that were at one time considered foreign, with the exception of a few Southern dishes. Middle American fare of the sort one finds at diners all across the country or at TGIF-type restaurants is hideous.

Americans cringe at the notion of snails in garlic butter with a puff pastry. Hey, maybe I shouldn't mind, it leaves more for me.

Pate' is not junk, but is ambrosia. You get about a quarter kilo of pate' avec truffes, a baguette, a bottle of decent Riesling or Gewurztrauminer, and that is a wonderful picnic lunch for 2 on a spring day.

Having fast food places littered all across the map is hardly a sign of quality or good taste. And there certainly is a healthy market for French food in this country. Once you actually venture out of small town America (Oooh, scary!) there are plenty of excellent French restaurants that do quite well. Yes, I know: "All things French are bad. Period." Enough.

Bart: Kilo?

Bart: Just because they are puny does not mean they should be given a free pass. Their lives should be made miserable. They are our enemies and they should be treated as such. No more happy talk. Interdiction and harrasment. No automatic visas. Start treating them like the dirt they really are.

"Evildooers!" "Dead or alive!" Oops, that was said about you-know-who...

Good taste is an affectation--tastes good is a franchise.

Anonymous:

You can have more than one enemy.

Yes, unhealthy, greasy, salty, high-fat crap often tastes good. But a franchise is not always a "positive;" there are plenty examples of that. By all means, enjoy your McDonald's and Wendy's! But again, that hardly means that "no one" prefers a good French meal. Not by a long shot. By the way, you don't get to decide for everyone in America what tastes good.

The Burger King sausage egg and cheese croissant seems rather popular.....I don't think escargot burgers will ever catch on though.

What McDonalds has going for it is certainty. If you live in NJ or Wyoming or you're driving along the interstate in the middle of nowhere and you get hungry, if you see a McDonalds you know exactly what you will get. It may not be very good but in small doses it won't kill you.

Affectation? I've been eating classical French fare for as long as I can remember.

French food across America really varies in quality, but I've eaten in some really good places like in Cincinnati and near Chicago. There is a famous one called Chalet Suzanne near Lake Wales,FL that should have its chefs arrested.

If you have a choice between eating in a restaurant owned by the Arc Corporation and a White Castle, stick with sliders.

David,

When I do this I think metrically, because I've only done this in Europe since you can't drink wine in a public park in America. If you try it in Central Park, the cops will pour out your wine and will fine you like $300. The Puritans strike again.

Robert,

We don't have to squash the French. A boycott here, pushing them out of NATO and demanding that the UN take away their veto and they'll start to get the message. All the new entrants to the EU can't abide them.

Carl,

I don't think I've ever had a decent croissant on this side of the Atlantic. It's like trying to find a decent bagel outside of the NY Metro area, all you get is a roll with a hole in the middle.

Bart:

Yes, but you're affected.

Bart,
Well, the BK croissants tend to be somewhat spongey, but then they have to be to soak up all the grease.

Of course, my favorite breakfast is beer and strawberry pop-tarts.....

PS. As long as we are frog-bashing ("it's easy, fun, and really needs no excuse..");

AP and UPI reported that the French Government announced yesterday that it has raised it's terror alert level from "run" to "hide."
The only two higher levels in France are "collaborate" and "surrender". This action was precipitated by the recent fire which
destroyed one of their White Flag factories, thereby totally disabling their military.

Bart:

"Virtually, all really good food in America is from cuisines that were at one time considered foreign, with the exception of a few Southern dishes"

Giving an expanded definition to "American" on this subject, here we go:

Roast beef, turkey, pork, lamb or any other roasted meat; pot roast; barbequed meat and fish a million different ways with many sauces; endless shrimp dishes; lobster, trout, salmon and char; immumerable fruit and nut pies and all kinds of cobblers and other offshoots; maple-anything; breakfast (shared with the Brits); cold cereals (you are wrong, as the world market proves) hamburgers, especially home-made and even hot dogs if they're from New York; club, grilled cheese and BLT sandwiches; peanut butter; fresh corn; fresh vegetables (raw or if steamed); fresh fruit; countless salads; dips, sauces and dressings galore; coleslaw and rotisserie chicken; snack food, Jewish and Mexican food and even a few contributions from Quebec; ice cream (yes, it's better than in Europe); steak, steak and steak;

And then there is all the regional stuff. The bane is deep-fried anything. But Big Mac's are sublime.

I forgot cheesecake.

PeterB,

American ice cream used high fructose corn syrup, French or Italian ice cream uses sugar. You're the first person I've ever heard of who prefers American.

Hamburgers and hot dogs come from Germany. Cheescake, depending upon the recipe is either Central European, Italian or Jewish. Cold cereal isn't even food. Most of your other references are merely ingredients, not dishes. Even 'American cheese' is of Dutch origin.

Bart:

What's the best selling French ice cream?

Miko, now owned by Unilever, is probably the largest, but the trick is to go to a parfumerie where they make their own.

Thanks to Congress, Americans pay about 3 times the world price for sugar, so we use that high fructose corn syrup crap instead. Thus, almost every 'sweet' thing in Europe from chocolates, to Coke to ice cream tastes about 1000 times better over there. Nothing beats real Godiva or Leonidas chocolates, not the licensed garbage made here.

I've gained 15 pounds just reading this thread. It's lunch time here along Michigan's sunset coast, so I think I'll go have lunch...peanut butter & jelly and cheese its w/milk. Tonight we're having homemade turkey soup, bread, apple sauce & wine(French I must confess -- Beaujolais Nouveau).

Bart:

You can hardly drive a mile in this country without going by a Miko stand, huh?

So what? That doesn't mean it doesn't taste A LOT better. It just means it's not readily available.

Just curious: Ever actually taste it yourself? Ever?

The availability of crap says nothing other than...crap is readily available. So people (obviously) buy more of it.
Maybe if GIVEN a choice...

If it were any good we'd all eat it often.

oj,

This is a country where Domino's and Little Caesar's find someone to buy their products. And these companies would produce a better product if they just poured the canned tomato sauce and the 'processed cheese food' on the cardboard box the pizzas come in. (Pizza Hut usually does have some faint resemblance to food so I am exempting it) I would not use the American consumer as some kind of bellwether.

More generally, most Americans simply don't know. It's like trying to find decent Chinese food in France, for all intents and purposes it just doesn't exist. There is no shortage of Chinese restaurants but they are just awful. The French don't have any comparison point.

Since the advent of the sugar subsidy, Americans haven't known what real sugary sweetness is unless they go overseas.

Bart:

You're simply wrong.

It sounds as though you travel on an expense account, and therefore try the finer things in Europe, but at home you're forced to economize.

Try reading the ingredients labels of the high-end ice cream brands, and possibly tasting some.
The idea that European ice creams are superior is simple snobbery, completely unsupported by reality.

There are hundreds of thousands of fine places to eat in the US, especially in your neck of the woods, and I'm rather surprised that you've made no effort to find them.
There are published guidebooks that could help you out.

As for French cuisine: Everything tastes good smothered in cream sauce.

Michael,

I'm not denying that there is good food in America. It's just by and large not 'American cuisine.' It is usually a foreign one, like French, Chinese, Italian or Thai. My Zagat New York is dog-eared. Before we went on diets, my boss and I would run to a prominent NYC restaurant for an early dinner late lunch every Friday. Peter Luger's or Union Square Cafe' being particular favorites.

Wherever and for whatever reason I travel, I always economize, trying to re-create the conditions I live in at home, in order to get a feel for the area I'm visiting.

What do you consider a high-end ice cream, I'm not an ice cream guy? And I won't even consider Ben and Jerry's, for political reasons. Haagen-Dazs is the best one at my supermarket.

Before you make such an ignorant comment about French cuisine, you should try some Provencal, Languedoc, or Gascon cuisine, or even just pick up a cookbook by Jacques Pepin or Pierre Franey in your local B & N.

You won't consider Ben & Jerry's for political reasons but sing the praises of France?

OJ,

The French are foreigners, they disagree. Ben and Jerry are ostensibly Americans, they are traitors.

They aren't the ones who sing the praises of France...

The best Ice cream in the known physical universe is made in Cincinnati OH by Greaters. They have stores in the tri state area and as far away as Columbus and Louisville. They also will fed-ex an order anywhere in the country. If you have an order sent in you must try a couple of the choclate chip flavors.

OJ,

Praising French cuisine is not 'singing the praises of France' any more than praising Cuban cigars is an endorsement of Fidel Castro or expressing a love for limited-access toll-free highways is an admiration of Adolf Hitler.

By their food shall you know them, race traitor.

oj,

I would say that you are behaving like some 16th century Spanish Inquisitor who put people to death because they lacked the 'Odour of Sanctity', because bathing was considered a 'Jewish' act, but then you would probably accept that as praise.

High praise.