Bad translation 2

Haven’t we been invaded with gourmet products the past 10 years, or what? 
The funny thing for me is to find products I was consuming in Europe more than 25 years ago; good products that anyone could buy in any store at a bottom price, not something fancy that has to have an “etiquette” to be justified; only the pride of a business to make and sell the best quality product they can make for an affordable price.

The Belgian chocolate “Cote D’or” is a Belgian favorite and it is as cheap as any other good Belgian chocolate. No one in Belgium would ever think to add a gourmet label to any of these treats.

Some of the Belgian cookies have found their way in this country and are generally sold as “gourmet” items, essentially at a higher price. These cookies are of a common consumption in Belgium and no one would buy them over there if the price was pumped up as it is here.

I think I could make a very long list of Belgian, French, German, British, Irish, Scottish, Swedish, Danish, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Swiss, Austrian, what am I forgetting, let’s say from Europe in general but I am sure from other countries as well, of goods that are labeled as gourmet in USA, only to find out they are simply good, common products that everyone can afford to buy in the country of origin, as bad products would not survive.

I think that we have gradually lost the concept of honest, good and well balanced product, with quality ingredients that, not only taste good but also feel good. It seems that, anything that portray to be of good quality here in the US, and certainly including American products, should than be called gourmet, only to justify the other items of lesser quality.

In reality, we should scrap entirely the concept as we have been misled from the start. “Gourmet” is a French noun with a different meaning, as it defines a person with discriminating taste in food and wine, not the products themselves discriminating the customer’s wallet.

I know, I know… no one could make more money with that!

Bad translation!

Sometime it gets confusing. Eating an “entree” when we already had an appetizer, which in most cases was preceded by… bread... that suppose to be served with food as an accompaniment and palate cleanser while eating.

The simple baguette made of floor, water, salt and yeast has been replaced nearly everywhere in this country by fancy type breads, most full of sugar and pumped up level of glycemic index to a raging level of 95, when it should be in the low 60ies.

Hot bread is also an interesting phenomenon. Warm bread is served warm because it is supposed to be baked in the restaurant and served fairly soon thereafter, not warm because a previously baked and sometime dried up bread got warmed up to pretend being made in the kitchen. That bread is the one we get more often than one wish and has lost its fresh taste to end up dry again as soon as it cools down. Half baked bread that gets their last baking touch in a restaurant, do not see most of the time the right temperature to reach the full crusty texture. Mushy warm bread with a sort of sugary glaze on top is really disgusting. That’s the one that can make the glycemic rating going crazy.

Then, we really start with warm bread, followed by an appetizer and a salad, generally drenched with “your favorite dressing” chosen from the same list we keep asking for to the waitress and waiter and topped with various… things making it a sort of complete meal on its own, to finally have the ordered entree, arriving inexpediently while you are still eating the previous pseudo-meal.

The salad served during a composed meal is used in France to neutralize one’s taste senses after a main course and before cheese and/or dessert. The portion is small and made simply with selected leafs, avoiding the stem, and stirred in a separate bowl in order to quote the leafs with vinaigrette (simple emulsion of vinegar, oil and salt with sometime crushed or chopped garlic and/or shallot).

The common monumental salads we eat here are destined to be a main course and can be quite complex as well in France. The Nicoise salad is particularly known among French salads.

Entrée is a French word meaning starter, appetizer. In this case, we would get a pre-pre-pre-entrée with the bread, a pre-pre-entrée with an appetizer, a pre-entrée with the salad to finally have an entrée. No main course, jumping directly to a dessert.

We did our food choice from what we call a menu, another French name meaning the list of preset meals composed of different courses, which is what French would call a “carte” and is the list of food plates. In a French restaurant, you can ask for “le menu” or “la carte” and compose your own menu with entrée and main course and whatever else one desire. 

I know, we are not in France and we end up eating differently here, which is true and fair to say. Nevertheless, we are using well defined French terms and have changed their meanings, as an inappropriate translation, and we have gradually modified our composed menus a such way that it has lost its healthy balance.

Julia Child, we miss you!

Bistro!... bistro!

Unusual title isn’t it? A bistro is a bistro and there is no reason to exclamate the name, even less twice… Although it was what created the name known today, representing a French style, casual restaurant serving simple meals at a reasonable price.

My maternal grand-father was living in Paris during and after WW1 and told me the story of Russians who had fled their country after the communist party revolution of 1917, targeting particularly nobles and anyone associated with them, including the myriad of servants.

Most of them ended up in Paris, as most nobles were speaking French as their language of culture. Some ex-servants ended up taxi drivers. They were working hard, eager to make money and loosing very little time during work hours, while their French colleagues were taking time to have breakfast, lunch and dinner at a more leasury pace.

The French “bar” has always been an open business where one can have a coffee and a croissant or a glass of wine and a lunch, or another glass of wine and a dinner. In fact, the term bar is generally used as “bar-tabac” where you can also buy tobacco products.

Our Russian taxi drivers were racing through their lunch and dinner, ordering at the bar, and most of the time shouting “bistro!...bistro!, which meant in Russian “quick!...quick!

Bistro became synonymous of quick service at a bar-tabac and soon, specific, small neighborhood restaurants opened under the name of bistro, serving one or two different meals, generally stew or repasts that could be prepared earlier in the day.

The name can also be spelled bistrot and the style got imported in various countries where the theme and ambiance have taken over the original meaning.

No more Russian taxi drivers rushing in a bar-tabac…

Some explanations...

First of all, about my title, I owe some explanations. I do not understand road traffic panels showing that the right lane will end, as we drive on the right side of the road in the US. If a right lane merges with the left lane, this lane becomes automatically the right lane… It is impossible for a right lane to end, not even temporarily.

I think that the history of left driving on the right side started with dirt highways made of one central lane that was higher (highway), allowing for drainage, and 1 or 2 sides to give way for traffic in both directions. Vehicles were running on the high side or the middle of the road, unless drivers had to cross another vehicle. 

By the 1920’s, highways were paved and the need for running on the middle of the road became absolute, or was it? As of today, it seems that the old habits have been transferred from generation to generation and the left lane is still a popular side of the road in the United States. But let’s remember that the left lane exists only because… there is a right lane, which will never ends.

All of that to say the subject of my title is the way my mind works and I am sure it will transpire through my blogs. It is another perspective, a blend of old and new that might open someone's mind to something different, yet with depth and history.

French people are saying: "Vive la difference", which means that the difference of opinions and view points is great, as it opens the scope of understanding any subject.

Here it goes, the first one and many more to come!

Well, here I go! I wanted to write a book for about 22 years and never stabilized enough my ideas to find the perfect subject, format and motivation to really start. I have been thinking about blogging but didn’t gave the right consideration, until…

I was impatiently waiting to see the movie “Julie & Julia” as I liked very much Julia child. I didn’t knew too much about her story, although knew her falling in love for French cuisine and for the inherent culture attached to it in the background.

What made me liking Julia was her amazing drive to make her dream of French cocking a reality, against a huge cultural divide and certainly some adversity. What she gave back was the most beautiful blend of kindness, modesty, passion and love for what she understood as being among the most important culinary concepts on our planet.

What fascinated me was to discover Julie who embraced Julia’s passion and went on one of the most daring venture I have heard recently: Experiencing all 536 recipes described by Julia Child in her first book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” in 365 days and, working a day job, and writing her blog at night, and dealing with he life with a (although supportive) husband, a cat, friends and who knows what else…

Julie Powell, you did inspired me! I got out of the theater and knew I had to do something that I meant to do for so long and here I am, 3 days later, finally writing… Thank you Julie, you are great!

I have a lot to write, on food, on the relation of people with food, on food related health subjects, on automobile, driving, human relations, the truth I have searched on subjects that get hid for various forms of reasons and… on the reason why a Right Lane Never Ends.

I hope to be of interest for anyone…