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Sunday, February 12, 2012

French Lessons


Mrs. Chatterbox and I were recently discussing our trip to France last year. We had a great time and experienced none of the snootiness for which Paris (excluding the rest of France) is famous. This wasn’t so in ’76 when we were newlyweds and backpacking through Europe with a copy of Frommer’s Europe on Ten Dollars a Day. Back then we had several interesting experiences in Paris that involved ordering food in restaurants.


First, I need to confess that I speak no foreign languages. Because I’m a bit on the swarthy side I’m often taken for a homeboy in many countries bordering the Mediterranean (with the exception of France.) Locals who address me are usually surprised I don’t speak their language. Not so with Mrs. C. who took eight years of high school and college French.


So there we were back in ‘76, two young kids experiencing the world for the first time when we slipped into a Parisian bistro for some grub. As usual, Mrs. C. did the ordering while I looked on with a vapid smile. When she’d finished ordering, the waiter, who’d been sneering the whole time she’d been speaking, started yelling at her. I didn’t need to understand a word of French to know that this fellow was being disrespectful and rude. I was considering treating him to an American knuckle sandwich, but the smile on my wife’s face got bigger and bigger the nastier he became.


By the time the waiter turned on his heels and marched off, my wife was smiling like she had a wire coat hanger stuck in her mouth. I said, “That guy sounded awfully rude. What did he say?”


Beaming, she explained, “He said that it makes him sick when tourists come to Paris

to practice their high school French. He said, ‘You think we don’t know what you’re up to? We can tell you Dutch people a mile away.’”


I was confused. “Your French wasn’t good enough to convince him you were French, yet you’re happy about it?”


“Don’t you get it?” she explained. “My French was good enough to convince him I was European! He didn’t know I was an American.”


To this day Mrs. C. claims this as the best compliment her French ever received.


But there was another time when her French nearly caused a disaster; it was years later and her French had gotten rusty. I was craving lamb chops and Mrs. C. ordered them after we’d sat down in a small Parisian restaurant. When the food arrived I was shocked. She’d ordered lamb all right—lamb brain. It was grey with ropey veins and arteries dangling from it. Grey juice was oozing as it rolled about on the plate.


I stared at it for a moment, wondering if this spongy, gelatinous organ had fallen out of Igor’s bag on his way to Dr. Frankenstein’s castle. Mrs. C. was horrified and couldn’t think of anything to say.


The waiter was standing by with an amused look on his face. He approached our table and said in perfect English, “Perhaps Monsieur would prefer a hamburger?”


All I could do was nod, gratefully.

24 comments:

  1. Tres amusee! You do have to be careful when ordering food in a French restaurant. They eat a lot of strange stuff -- and most of it smells funny.

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  2. So is it mandatory that to be a waiter in France you have to be rude? Is that part of the qualifications? I took Spanish for my foreign language and can still remember enough to ask where the bathroom is or to say you have a fish in your pants: Tu tienes una pescada in tus pantalones. Something like that.

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  3. Oh that is funny! My parents were French, so I grew up speaking French and English. I had a rude comeuppance regarding my facility for the language when in my 20s we went to Quebec. We got lost and in my very best French I asked a local for directions to the Holiday Inn. To my embarrassment, he responded, "Sorry, I don't speak English."

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  4. I came for a visit from Sandee Blog.

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  5. I'd have given him that knuckle sandwich. That was just plain rude times 22. I've no interest in visiting France. Many other countries yes, but France no.

    I like your wife's attitude. She rocks.

    Have a terrific day. :)

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  6. I went to Europe in 1972 with a girlfriend with the same dog-eared "Frommer's Europe on $10 a day" book that you had. She spoke German and I spoke Spanish, so we were S.O.L. in France. The only word for food we knew was Jambon, which is ham. Every meal we had in France had some variation of ham in it. We figured it was the safest choice for fear we would end up with lamb's brains like you did! Unfortunately we didn't really have the culinary experience one hopes for in France by having ham with everything! I think it might be time to go back, this time with a Julia Child cookbook in hand to avoid the whole organ's on a plate experience!

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  7. Gosh-that is funny! The lamb's brain sounded extra disgusting- I guess some consider it a delicacy, though. I loke your wife's attitude at the first snooty waiter. That's the way to come out ahead!

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  8. The real issue was their inability to cook. Lamb brain should be crunchy and buttery, often breadcrumb golden with parsley and garlic.

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  9. And every time the Germans attacked, we still went in and save their rumps...

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  10. I totally "get" your wife feeling complimented! When I first started working here in the U.S., I lived in New York, but worked with a number of people from Pennsylvania. Once, the topic of my accent came up, and my Pennsylvanian co-worker was totally surprised I am German. He thought my accent was because I was from New York. Best compliment I ever got!

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  11. Perhaps your oozing brains would have gone down better with some snooty Grey Poupon.

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  12. Lamb brains - UUUUUGH! I wonder if anybody in Europe still eats it, what with the BSE scare and everything? I mean, I know it's not the same as cow brains, but it's still off-putting. I mean, who wants to be the first person to catch a disease from eating lamb brains?

    You were brave to just look at it and not slap it away. Bleuugh!

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  13. Haha...life's an adventure here in France.

    My sister came to stay years ago, and not knowing what the French was for jam, and thinking that as it was a preserve it was more than likely going to be "préservatif" was shocked to be shown condoms.

    SP

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  14. I don't know anything about them ,The Chubby Chatter box because I never been there but I enjoy reading it.
    :)

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  15. I heard they're considering disbanding the French military due to the recent catastrophic fire at the white flag factory. Pity. ;)

    S

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  16. I also have had eight years of French. When I went to Paris, someone spat on me. In Montreal someone called me a @#%&((^%$ farmboy. In Martinique, the shopkeepers flipped me off and walked away. This is what comes of speaking a language from a country where guns are banned (I think). I have actively tried my best to forget French. They speak like they have escargot in their noses and popcorn shells in their throat. Before my son did a family tree, I thought my family was Irish. It turns out he is Swiss and French. Not me.

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  17. Went to France in high school and the only people who refused to speak French with us were in Paris. We never got served lamb's brain so now I feel left out!

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  18. Yuck. But what a funny story. I bet lamb brains are a delicacy in France, too.

    xoRobyn

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  19. Great post. It was 1969 and Lana and I were in Paris, as part of our European honeymoon tour. First night in France and we are staying on the Left Bank. I walk to a little sidewalk cafe and order two glasses of wine and two ham and cheese sandwiches on baguette. I say "Vin rouge" and hold up two fingers. "Jambon and fromage" and hold up two fingers again. The order comes and I have 3 wines and 3 sandwiches. Later I order "glace" and again hold up the same two fingers as you use in making a peace or victory sign. Back come three ice creams. Later I see the problem. The man at the counter is counting something back to someone and he begins 1 using his thumb. My two "two" fingers were, in his idiom, numbers two and three!
    Travel is a widening experience.

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  20. I'm not sure I could even have eaten a hamburger after seeing the plate of lamb brains. You're a better man than I am.

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  21. Whenever I think of a French waiter and hamburger in the same sentence, I think of that scene with Steve Martin in the Pink Panther trying to pronounce hamburger.

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  22. Oh, the French and their lamb brain practical jokes . . . :D

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  23. Couple of GREAT stories there. I'm glad you mentioned Frommer's. My parents and I made many a wonderful discovery while using that guide during trips to Europe. Highly recommended.

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  24. I love it! My hubby and I had the a wonderful time in Paris ( 2008)...the people we so friendly and kind to us...and neither of us spoke a word of French. I took Spanish for 4 years, and boned up on it for 6 months before we went to Mexico...real Mexico, not a resort. It was such a pleasure talking to people in the zocolo...we were the only Gringos in the town. Love your humor Mr. C. Laurel

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