Amending Menus

Don't try ordering french fries at a U.S. House of Representatives cafeteria.

(thanks to Mark Noble for the link.)

Comments

[david agren]

Let's take this foolishness one step further. To protest Canadian indecision on war and the childish anti-American insults spewing from our elected officials mounths, please start calling Canadian bacon, back bacon - its proper name - instead.

I never thought I would see right-wingers stoop to the same level of polically correct tomfoolery the left has propagated for decades.

[Sean]

It seems like this wouldn't bother the French one bit. I'm sure they are dreaming of the day when they don't have to deal with thousands of American tourists showing up at their restaurants and ordering french fries.

[Steve]

David, I don't know why you're surprised that the right would stoop to PC. They've been going along with it for years now.

Sean, the French dream of a day when they don't have to deal with thousands of American tourists.

[joe]

I remember laughing when I heard that during WWI, people started calling saurkraut "freedom cabbage." It struck me as a stupid gesture, and I was glad I didn't live in such an idiotic culture.

They also changed the name of German toast to "French Toast."

[quaker120]

"The practical politician, as every connoisseur of ochlocracy knows, is not a man who seeks to inoculate the innumerable caravan of voters with new ideas; he is a man who seeks to search out and prick into energy the basic ideas that are already in them, and to turn the resultant effervescence of emotion to his own uses." --H.L. Mencken

[LM]

For a group of politicians that strive daily to toast and fry the cause of freedom, the new names for the dishes seem very appropriate

[Russ]

When I order a White Russian, do I order White Freedom now?

[david f]

actually, you can't say "white" either, the left wing PC'ers will be against that. it should be referred to as a "oppressive, flesh-eating, military-industrial-complex-perpetuating acid-rain causer". it's a mouthful. but at least it's served in one of those cool martini glasses.

and french toast, french dressing (which is the same as russian, so that's two birds with one stone) are outre/ passe.

but think of all the wonderful things we can now get rid of:
nuevelle cuisine
hors d'oevres
that certain je ne sais quoi
deja vu

but we lose our:
savoir faire
joie de vivre
menage a trois

so, we do lose out on some pretty good things, too. probably this particular way of acting jingoistic is best left to the europeans while we can still admire "the old country" from the semester abroad.....

(actually, this is almost as silly as the tales of ashcroft covering up the statues (is that true???))

au revoir...
drf

[JJ]

Aren't French fries originally from Belgium? Maybe they could call them "Belgian fries."

(But Belgium's against the war too. Oh dear.)

[Anonymous]

Yep, Ashcroft covered up a statue of Justice or something because she was topless.

Funny though, if you didn't know who did it you couldn't tell if it was a fundy christian or a paleoleft feminist at work.

Would a topless statue constitute a hostile work environment? Sexual harassment?

[omnibus bill]

I'm so confused.

I like eating frog legs.

Now is that bad, because "frog" is in the title?

Or is it good because you get to kill lots of frogs?

[Lefty]

Shut up and balance the budget.

[David F]

as long as the frog's breasts are covered, i think you're okay.

bon appetit,
drf

[Gene Berkman]

Ari Fleischer has also gotten back at the French. At a press conference this morning (3/11)he twice stated that we cannot have a "laissez faire policy" toward Iraq.

Maybe the guys at ARI will figure out that Bush does not have a laissez faire policy toward America either.

[Jim Treacher]

I'm probably in the minority, but I actually thought The Freedom Connection II was better than the first one.

[Johnny Rockets]

If you really want to get back at the French for not supporting our war, why not just start referring to "french fries" as "chips" instead? You'll also be supporting the British, who are our allies in this. 🙂

Yeah, I know, "don't give them any ideas." It's just that "freedom fries" just sounds utterly ridiculous.

[Joe Dokes]

Ahh yes, to quote a Fish called Wanda,

"The Chip, Englands contribution to cuisine."

I'd call them chips, but that might be too much for most Americans, because they would have to call chips, crisps.

Regards

[Amr]

Rockets: if we call fries "chips", then we gotta switch our chips into "crisps". What's wrong with just calling the damned things "fries"?

Different issue: how do you order regular toast in France?

[Brian]

French kiss-->English kiss? Spanish kiss? Tounge kiss?

"Pardon my French"-->"Pardon my Danish"?

"April in Paris"-->"April in London"?

And I really like my French press coffee maker, do I have to give that up, too?

Actually what bothers me most about this is that I can't make fun of the French any more without risking it being interpreted as a pro-war statement.

[Sean]

Sorry, the fries to chips, chips to crisps switch won't work here. We already have crisps in the form of Pringles. Originally called potato chips, they were changed to potato crisps due to pressure from the potato chip industry (not sure of all the legal details). They adopted crisp to describe their pressed dehydrated potato product. I'm guessing they aren't going to share that moniker willingly with the chip folks.

And as for the French having our back against England during the revolution, that was pre-French Revolution France. After that they got all shifty.

[A Pissed-off Parisian]

OVER AND OVER AGAIN, WE KEEP HEARING THIS MANTRA:

"Look at the way we liberated Afghanistan. And now we want to do the same for Iraq, but 'the cowardly French' are standing in our way. And they have the gall to act as though they're the moral ones!

That's the thanks we get for liberating France and saving them from the Nazis. Now those ingrates turn their backs on us, after all we've done for them."

Don't they realize that what "we" did (meaning a previous generation) in World War II makes us indebted to you forever? This is similar to the mother who has a perpetual trump card: "I went through labor for you, you ingrate. And this is the way you repay me?"

ACTUALLY -- HOW SOON YOU FORGET ...

You forget the fact that your help in WW-II was PAYBACK for France's help during the evolutionary War and during the Battle of New Orleans.

(That's help rendered TWICE.)

a) Without us, you wouldn't have been able to vanquish General Cornwalis at Yorktown.

b) Without French help, there might not even have been a US of A, and you would still be just another English "colony," like Canada or Australia.

Normandy et al was PAYBACK, my friend.

Mon dieu!

[Pissed-off Parisian]

Meant to say (R)evolutionary War. (somehow the "R" got dropped.

[joe]

I thought I remembered the "German Toast" thing from high school. My history teacher drank a lot, though.

[Johnny Rockets]

If you really want to know what to rename everything to, this article should make a nice reference guide:

http://www.whitehouse.org/news/2003/022503.asp

[JDM]

Parisian,

Canada and Australia are not British colonies.

[Lefty]

Mmm, wrong, dude. Can't speak for Australia but Canada still reports to the Queen. It's a technicality nowadays but they were definitely a colony.

Carry on.

[JDM]

Lefty,

They both *were* colonies, just as the US was. They are both independent soveriegn nations now. Canada does consider the British royal family its own royalty, but it is entirely symbolic.

[Neb Okla]

From now on, I'm only "Freedom Kissing".

Step right up, ladies.

[Neb Okla]

Steve,

The American tourists only show up when the German tourists get too rowdy and won't leave.

Vor mein Gro?vater und seine Freunde dauerten einen Feiertag hier einem halben Jahrhundert.

Ihr Kreuzfahrtschiff angekoppelt bei Normandie.

[Anonymous]

Instead of quibling about the dependency status of either Canada or Australia, how about acknowledging the fact that we wouldn't have been able to defeat England, were it not for the French.

I checked my history. The Parisian's got a good point, n'est pas?

[JDM]

The Parisian has no point. The French should support the invasion of Iraq on its merits, whether or not anyone is owed anything.

The US would have won independence eventually, just as Australia and Canada did. But suppose that US independence was owed to French military support. That would only reinforce the idea that progress is often won by force of arms, the very idea that many supporters of the war are claiming the French, despite the reletively recent experience of WWII are forgetting.

[Kevin Carson]

A couple of bits of useless history:

French fries got their name from the culinary term "to French," or cut into narrow strips.

The French call it "English kissing," and the two countries once called syphilis the French/English disease, respectively. Both have a long history of identifying the source of all degeneracy as on the other side of the Channel.

Gary: Is de Rochambeau the source of Cartman's "I'll Rochambeau you for it"?

[Bill]

The funniest I've heard is replacing "Chicken Fried Steak" with "French Fried Steak".

[Xrlq]

Removing all French references from our language won't piss off the French, but speaking French badly probably will.

[Gary Gunnels]

Kevin,

I don't know. The only thing that I can think of about de Rochambeau that seems to remotely deal with, well, ahh, hmm, "competing" ("negotiating?") for an object, etc. (don't the kids on South Park kick each other in the balls when they Rochambeau?) would be what happened to Cornwallis' ceremonial sword. When Cornwallis met de Rochambeau, Washington, etc. to surrender, Cornwallis offered de Rochambeau his ceremonial sword, which the lattered refused to take, telling Cornwallis to give to Washington. Washington in turn refused the sword and told one of his officers to take it. Admittedly this more like a hot potato contest than it is a competition to gain ownership of an object, but there is a bit of a similarity. Also, I've always had the impression that these actions were an insult, but I may be wrong.

Sidenotes:

When the battle had been won, the American forces began to cheer their good fortune, which Washington silenced by telling them to let "history" yell their "cheers" (he actually said "huzzahs," but who the hell uses that word anymore?).

When the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) made it to France in the fall of 1917 (remember France's army nearly collapsed in April-May of that year before they got their shit together again in June), one of the US military commanders (it wasn't Pershing) said in a speech something like this: "Lafayette we have come!"

Yorktown was also the site of a battle in 1862 during the Civil War.

Also Washington had to be cajoled into moving into Virginia - in fact Washington wanted to liberate New York intially (which he had abandoned early in the war) - thus we have the French to thank for not only material aid and support, as well as manpower, but also for the good strategic sense of their military leaders.

Cornwallis' mistakes also played into the allies hands as well. Cornwallis had moved into Virginia as a way to escape the harrassment of Nathaniel Greene who had annoyed him throughout the Carolinas. However, Cornwallis had orders to protect the ports of Savannah and Charleston, and if he had done so, he likely would not have been bottled up like was in Yorktown. Rather stupidly he assumed that the British navy would always get the best of the French anywhere they might meet along the North American coast, and that re-supply and rescue would never be a real issue. Such is the arrogance of empire.

[ausyankee]

Can't speak for Australia but Canada still reports to the Queen. ||| Yup, we are still Queen forelock tuggers as well, but now are also being slowly digested like an Outback Steakhouse Special by the Upper 50 states. We rejected becoming a Republic a couple of years back, thanks to an excreble fear campaign by our current Prime Miniature, John Howard (who might be Shrubya's sole remaining bestest friend -- they talked for 20 minutes on the phone today at Bush's initiative.)

[jens]

Are you sure they aren't saying "I'll roshambo you for it?"

Roshambo is the ancient Japanese game of rock-scissor-paper.

[Neb Okla]

Dear Pissed-off Parisian,

Is your argument that our nations are even?

I agree that France played a considerable role in the birth and development of the United States - and then underwent a revolution of its own. We love the land acquired through the Louisiana Purchase - and the Statue of Liberty is wonderful.

To me, this was a sound investment on the part of France, because this young whipper-snapper of a country came to your aid twice in world wars.

I don't think that France *owes* us for anything - liberty is a gift, not a favor.

It seems that now, the US feels threatened by rogue regimes across the face of the planet, and to those charged with defending America from such attacks, an aggressive policy toward these countries seems reasonable.

France hopes to defuse the situation with a wait-and-see attitude, and the US objects.

It seems to me that the Iraqi regime only responds to military might - and the irony of the situation is that if the UN security council were united in achieving the disarmament of Iraq, Saddam would have cooperated more fully.

Instead, the procrastination of the French government will ultimately lead to the worst situation of all. US unilateralism, an impotent security council, and war.

[Steve]

Neb:
I disagree with one small part of your post. An impotent Security Council (and UN) is a good thing.

[Gary Gunnels]

France's Efforts In The American Revolutionary War:

The efforts of Franklin to get France to enter the war are well known - in fact Franklin, along with many of his fellow revolutionaries, considered their involvement key to any campaign against the British. This was partly because the French could supply the revolutionaries with weapons, and partly due to the fact that France's navy was the only navy in the world that could possibly stand-up to that of the British. To illustrate the first point, consider that in 1777 the playwright de Beaumarchais' efforts in getting French made arms and supplies sent to the colonials (without the blessing of the French monarchy I might add) much aided the American victory at the Battle of Saratoga - a victory that in turn made it easier for France to enter formally into an alliance with the United States (1778).

Though it should be noted that from 1778-1780 the war did not often go well for the revolutionaries, as they lost Savannah and Charleston in those years, and the British commander Cornwallis won a nearly decisive campaign at Camden in 1780, Cornwallis was ultimately drawn into Virginia by Lafayette and Nathaniel Greene, where French aid counted the most in the end. For it was the Franco-American force of Generals Washington and de Rochambeau (led from New York - a feat in itself at the time given how fast the army was given to reach Virginia - that is five hundred miles in three weeks on often at best crappy roads) that met and checked Corwallis there, with the aid of Lafayette, and it was the French fleet under de Grasse that bottled up any escape that Cornwallis might have made by sea from Yorktown by defeating the British fleet in the Chesapeake. Outnumbered and surrounded, Cornwallis surrendered on Oct. 19, 1781. Without the French fleet, as well as the sizable French army that fought alongside Washington's forces, Cornwallis' entrapment would have likely been impossible.

Although Cornwallis's humiliating defeat at the hands of the Franco-American alliance did not immediately end the war - which would drag on for almost two more years - a new British government (Lord North's - who had been in power since the Boston Massacred of 1770 - regime fell from power to be replaced by that of Rockingham, who was replaced a year later by Shelburne, who was in turn replaced by Bentnick the year after that, who was also in turn replaced the year after that by Pitt the Younger, who stuck around as PM until 1801) decided to pursue peace negotiations in Paris in early 1782. In April of 1783 the treaty was signed.

[Robert Hutchinson]

If we're being extra picky, "Jan ken pon" is the Japanese name for the game. I tried looking up the etymology of "rochambeau" (which is an English name for the game), but got squat. The aforementioned Frenchman seems to be the only famous person with the name, and no one I found knew what the connection might be.

On topic: Does this spell trouble for the Coneheads?

[imbert sarah young]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
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DATE: 01/26/2004 01:33:15
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

[Nike Dunk High]

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