My oldest daughter, as her mother (my first Frau) majored in French in HS- for her HS (my daughter's) senior trip, they were going to Paris for ten days- The Sorbonne, the Louve, the Champs de Ulysses, all the arrondisments (sic) Ernie Hemingway knew, and wrote about in the "Moveable Feast" !! But World terrorism had already reared its sad and sorry head, and the PTB decided a trip to Quebec was safer- so they went there-
Montreal is indeed, also a moveable feast indeed. Lynne's mother graduated from Oberlin Ladies College in Ohio with a solid major in French; and went to Paris one summer to study at the Sorbonne, the next summer to Switzerland to study at Bern-- so she had more of the influx of how the French folk speak their native language--! Lynne and her mother conversed in French as part of her HS study-- and when she and her friends returned, she told her mother-- "Mom, they don't speak real French French in Quebec, do they?''
Being a mix of Slavic and Irish lineage, I avoid food covered with rich sauces- recalling the old adage-- "Doctors bury their mistakes in graveyards, lawyers send their mistakes to elected political office, and bad cooks cover their mistakes with sauces one has trouble pronouncing well"
As to the Frogs as gun-makers- from a military standpoint, they stink- as for the sporting guns, recalling the late Michael Mcintosh's review of Georges Granger shotguns-- If they are George's guns, let them be and move on to the really great Limey and Italian sidelocks--
No greater egos exist than in France-- one of the numbered Louie's had the audacity to state "Le Etat, C'est Moi" How ballsy- or should I say- Balzac, is that???
RWTF, I have to confess my surname is actually a French name. Occasionally some lovely SxS's circa 1900 show up made by a very distant relative. However, while my surname is French, I believe that French DNA has been vastly outnumbered by the 8,000 or so other contributors to my genetic makeup since Roblin left France in a hurry in the 1500s, a Huguenot in the wrong place at the wrong time. After a shortish stay in England it was on to the 13 colonies for a number of generations before backing the wrong horse and having to leave in a hurry around 1776. Throughout that period and up to the present day it has been one long, continuous effort to dilute the French blood.
When I was in my mid twenties and while happily unattached, I got a phone call from a quite attractive friend who had just spent three years at cooking school in Paris. "Come over" she said. "I've got a month before I have to return to Canada. Let's tour France". So I did. It turned into a three week eating tour of most of the regions of France south of Paris. Searching out the most authentic places and local styles to eat, with a guide who was immersed in the subject. It changed my lifelong eating habits! And as you suggest, my default prior was that sauces were to hide crappy food.
Sorry for the diversion from topic.
Ha! Just put my high school German to use and translated your response to Raimey's comment without resorting to Google.
