Filed under: Culture Shock, Everyday Life | Tags: doggy bag, Everyday Life, food, French culture
I’ve already discussed that matter and won’t add to it: what we eat and how we prepare food is one of the most obvious cultural difference between French and Americans (and forget about the cliche: I’m not saying that the difference is always in favor of French food!). However, here’s a weird American tradition about food that I did not bring up yet: doggy bags.
It looks like a tradition in this country to take back home the food you did not finish eating at the restaurant. You bought the food: the food is yours! Not only is it well accepted, but in some places you may even offend the chef not to ask for your leftovers and suggest that you did not like what you had. Plus, you must be stupid not to take full advantage of the price you paid!
I know that since my first day in the US but despite the fact, I’ve never been able to ask for my doggy bag. The words just don’t come out. On the other side of the pond, asking for a doggy bag would be regarded as a lack of “savoir-vivre” even in the most crappy restaurant. Going out to the restaurant, you’re not buying food but an “experience” and – even when it ends up being an excellent one – an “experience” may not be carried back home. You may own the food, but the experience remains the restaurant’s most precious asset! Don’t you dare take it away! Plus, in the rare places where it would not be a problem, you don’t want to bring back juicy, smelly meals in your car!
As we were eating at a fancy restaurant this week, I told a friend about my stupid physical incapacity to ask for my leftovers. So he did it for me. Believe it or not, for no explainable reason, I felt even more embarrassed for him.
After all that time living here, my conclusion is that along with a terrible French accent, food habits are one of the last-remaining genetically encrypted evidence of French origin. Scary no?
Filed under: Culture Shock, Everyday Life | Tags: cars, Ford F-Series, gas mileage, Peugeot 207
A French friend recently asked me why Americans are getting so upset with gas prices, as $4 per gallon remains about half the gas prices in France and Europe (mainly because of the very high tax level on gas). Well, I made some research and here’s a clue:
On my right, the best selling car in America is the Ford F-150. A “car” (not sure that truck fits into that category) that is 211 inches long (5.35m), powered by a 4.2-litre V6 engine for the smallest model. The average gas mileage of a Ford F-Series is 14 mpg (16.8 l/100). 588,952 vehicles have been sold in 2007.
On my left, the best selling car in Europe is the Peugeot 207. A car (well, at least it has 4 wheels) that is 155 inches long (4m), powered by a 1.4-litre engine and featuring an average gas mileage of 37 mpg (6.3l/100). 437,505 units have been sold in 2007.
No doubt that filling the 38 gallon tank of an F-150 truck would hurt most of the French too!
Next question is: what do American drivers need to carry around in such a truck that Europeans don’t?
Filed under: Culture Shock, Paradox | Tags: firearms, terrorism, USA, Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart and the bi-partisan coalition of Mayors Against Illegal Guns announced in April that Wal-Mart, the largest seller of firearms in the nation, has adopted the new Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership, a code that should help ensure that guns do not fall into the wrong hands. The news irritated Kevin Miller this afternoon. The chronicler of my favorite pro-republican radio station – KDKA Newsradio Pittsburgh – was shocked by the intention of Wal-Mart to videotape and file all firearm buyers in its stores. According to Miller, this would be a severe restriction to the Second Amendment and to the individual rights that America stands for.
According to the National Rifle Association for Legislative Action, 30.364 private American citizens were killed by guns in 2005.
The Patriot Act and all the security bills passed by the Bush Administration allow, among other things, the introduction of biometric records on everyone entering the American soil, phone-taping of any private conversation by secret services and, more recently, drug use and practices generally regarded as acts of torture for interrogation of persons suspected of terrorism. But for the sake of National Security, these restrictions to individual rights and freedom have been quite welcomed.
According to the Department of State, terrorism killed 19 private American citizens in 2007 (2 in Afghanistan and 17 Iraq, none on US soil).
To make America safer, all presidential candidates have a plan to fight terrorism. None will question the Second Amendment of the Constitution adopted in 1787 because “a well regulated militia” was then “necessary to the security of a free State” (and especially a State surrounded by a well organized British army!)
Times change! Priorities don’t?
Is America entering into recession or not? For months, experts have been asked the same question with always the same unanimous conclusion: “we can not say for sure before it’s gone.” As the experts remain unclear, let’s poll average Joe! But again, the conclusion of street interviews is not as clear as expected by the media: “Mrs Baxter is sure of one thing: it is increasingly difficult to close the month.” Yeah, sure! Can you remember a time when Ms. Baxter recognized she was rich enough to afford all the nice stuff she’s been shown on TV?. But today, gas prices are rising more “than ever before”, and we’re told that speculators are gambling on corn prices. So for sure, today, Mrs Baxter truly must be another victim of the economic recession.
I do not know if America is heading into recession, but the Americans are close to having a nervous breakdown. Polled week after week about gasoline prices and declining purchasing power, the U.S. consumer finally cracked under the pressure of those torture interrogation techniques: “Yes! I must admit! Gasoline is getting more expensive and I will have to slow down on doughnuts!” He finally said it! Whew! See? We really are in the middle of a recession then!
Bad luck! I left France in the middle of a never ending “crisis” at $5 per gallon of gas in Paris a year ago, and here I am caught in the “recession” at $3.5 per gallon in Pittsburgh. Damned! Someone help me make my next move! What’s the price of gasoline in Beijing?
Here is a study that will probably not be published in the French media: the private for-profit health care is twice as important in France as in the U.S.! As a French who has been told for years that only a public system can provide good health care, I had to read this information several times to believe it. But the numbers are merciless: the private sector accounts for 21% of the French hospital capacity against only 12% in the USA. However, the American system keeps leaving millions of people without health care while the French system continues to be rated as one of the world’s most effective according to the World Health Organization.
Should we conclude that the private sector is doing a better job providing health care? Certainly not. There are many other criteria to consider. But this should make the French reconsider the reality of a widely anchored stereotype describing America as a kind of ultra-capitalist jungle where people don’t mind leaving the wounded behind. If the French should fear the American health care, it is not because it is a “country where you need a credit card to access an emergency room”. But maybe because of the lack of competition between health insurances and in the pharmaceutical industry, which is selling drugs at an insane price… to a majority of public hospitals!
The Democrats – Clinton and Obama together – firmly intend to bring up the issue in the upcoming presidential debate. Hillary Clinton is even promising “affordable health insurance for each single American”. An American adaptation of the French “Universal Health Care”. Maybe Hillary spent too much time in France visiting our former first lady Bernadette Chirac?
PS. here’s an excellent post by SuperFrenchie to learn more about the French supposedly “socialized” medical system.
