There is nothing like a bit of xenophobic name calling to get us all in the holiday mood. As President Chirac has kicked off about British food, suggesting it is the worst in Europe (except for Finland - I wonder what they did to him?) I think that conveniently excuses me from the need to be diplomatic.
Half the fun of being English of course is that it is our patriotic duty to say outrageously insulting things about the French. Half the fun of being French, my French friends tell me, is that it is a patriotic duty to say outrageously insulting things about the English. On with the motley.
A fat lot of room Chirac has to talk about crappy English food. The French will eat anything. One regional delicacy in Lorraine province consists of cow's noses thinly sliced and sautéed in garlic butter. Sometimes I think the French would eat dog turds if they were sautéed in garlic butter. Another French delicacy is lamb's tongues. I have often taken to task those American fast food chains whose products contain mainly lips and arseholes. French haute cuisine chefs go further however, they serve snot and saliva. Another French delicacy is pigs feet. Next time you are passing a pig pen just take a look what those trotters have been marinating in before they land on your plate.
Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding, spotted dick and custard, faggots and peas, bangers and mash; all these have been celebrated in verse. Scottish Haggis which Chirac described as a weapon of mass destruction (that's rich coming from a man who eats cow's noses) is the subject of a famous verse by Scotland's national poet Robert Burns.
"Fair fa your honest sonsie face,
great chieftain o' the pudding race,
aboon them a' ye tak your place,
painch, tripe and thairm.
Weel worthy are ye o' a grace
as lang's my arm."
So there! I'll bet pigs feet have never inspired such eloquence.
The Gleneagles Hotel where the G8 conference is being held will be serving a traditional Scottish banquet in honour of the world's leaders. Let's hope that for the benefit of M. Chirac the menu includes that Glaswegian favourite Deep Fried Mars Bar.
BTW: For the benefit of politically correct types who infiltrate this site from time to time, I love French food (though I tend to pass on cows noses) The comments of M. Chirac were meant humourously and should be taken as such, as should this posting. For God's sake, what kind of a world would it be if the French and the English could not insult each other. We would have to gang up on the Dutch. (Belgium is to France what Wales is to England.)
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