Montreal (where I live) is in Quebec, which is three-and-a-half times bigger than France, and (like France), full of people who talk French the whole time - for the very simple reason that it is their language, and therefore their preferred method of exchanging information with one another.
I live with one of these French-Canadians. In many ways, he is indistinguishable from any other Canadian, except his name is French, he speaks French (when he is not at home), and he is able to eat cheese that is not cheddar or Monterey Jack without having a breakdown.
Often, in the evenings - which are cold and long, as we live in Canada - we insult each others' countries. We are doing quite well: the mere mention of a toast rack leaves him rigid with glee, whilst I have yet to understand why the canned anchovies are kept in the refrigerated fish section of the supermarket. Tooth mugs and fruit salad; dust and syrup: the list goes on and on, and our evenings fly by, each one melding into the next.
Recently, whilst walking along a highway looking for a spectacle, we reached new levels of understanding whilst describing to each other the ideal night out in our respective countries.
Normal French Canadian evening's entertainment, according to me
"First of all you go to a bar and watch the Habs for a bit and drink a Labatt or something. Then you get in your car and drive round and round until you find a spectacle with either horses and clowns, or acrobats and clowns on tiny unicycles. What they will have in common is an opera lady going 'woo woo woo' and some electric guitar, and/or costumes featuring at least 5 colours and weird hairdos. Either way, both will be embarrassing and there will be a lot of expressive skipping going on that will make me feel sick.
After you've done that you will go to a restaurant in a shopping mall and have a Festival of Crevettes or Brochettes, with some poutine. Then you will go home and get the chocolate fondue on, and you will sit on front of the TV with your Céline Dion autobiography on your lap and watch a 3 hour biopic of Maman Dion and you love it and you cry the whole way through it. Then the next morning you go out and have an omelette that has fruit salad on the plate and you pour maple syrup all over it."The perfect evening for an English person, according to a French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist who cuts his own hair
"First of all you go home and you have boiled sausage and cabbage for dinner. Then, when it starts raining, you go out for a walk and then you come back and your clothes are all damp, but you don't care and you sit in your damp clothes in your armchair and read a mouldy poetry book that has dust flying off it from the breeze that is coming through the badly-ventilated window you are sitting next to.
Then, to make the evening really perfect, you'll have a 'lovely cup of tea' and when you take the first sip you'll say, "ooh that's LOVELY", or "oh, there's nothing like a nice cup of tea", like it's the first time you've ever tried it and you're really surprised. Then you will go to bed but it will be so cold in your bedroom, even in summer, that you will see your breath coming out. Then in the morning you will drink more tea and be surprised that it's nice, and you will make toast that you will put in a toast rack so it's good and cold, and then you'll put Marmite on it and think it's the most delicious thing you've ever eaten."I see nothing wrong with this at all.
18 comments:
Well you must know that the Habs are one of the original 6 teams in the NHL and they used to WIN ALL THE TIME!!! They were GODS OF HOCKEY.Now pass a nice cuppa, won't you dear?
That sounds like a pretty good English evening to me. Nothing like a nice walk in the rain!
also, fruit salad on the same plate as omelette? with maple syrup on it all? wrong
My God - it's like he's lived here all his life!
(Have to admit North American breakfasts are a guilty pleasure of mine and, in the past, just the mere thought of one has been enough to book flights...)
Gosh, I see a series here! With guest posts as you could have all sorts of people chime in with normal entertainment from around the world. And then you might get really, really lucrative offers from various tourism boards to please just knock it off already, things are difficult enough in this economy!
Chips and gravy and CHEESE CURDS. Did I miss something? Is this some kind of French Canadian joke that non French Canadians ain't getting. I mean really, what kind of lunacy is this?!
What's wrong with plain ol' chips'n'gravy?
Sigh.
Whatever is the world coming to?
Yum - we do poutine here on the west coast of Canada, too. And there are many, many, many Habs fans here as well. Labatts isn't our preferred beer, though. (That's probably Kokanee, which I don't think you can get back east.) So other than that - oh, and the fact that we can't stand Céline Dion - your version of the French Canadian's perfect evening is pretty much valid in BC too!
Gravy has no place at all on chips, let alone cheese curds. And my eyes are burning from reading the description of breakfast.
You two are both spot on! I think you shall be married forever as you seem to only argue about these trivial cultural differences.
The French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist who cuts his own hair seems to have forgotten the bit where we Brits drink Bacardi Breezes until will puke through our eyeballs then start fights with the paramedics who are trying to stop us drowning in booze, partially digested kebabs and bile. Ha! Perhaps he’s not as clever as he thinks.
LutraLutra: he has never met THAT kind of English person, you see! Problem solved.
Icy Mt: we shall be married in October, and will remain married forever - or at least until we kill each other.
I'm afraid the normal evening's entertainment has many, many regional variations here in Canadia.
For instance, here, in Not-the-end-of-the-world-but-you-can-see-it-from-here, we largely eschew Labatts for Black Horse and we have few acrobats or clowns. And we share BC's hatred of Celine Dion. Or rather, those of us who are not tone deaf do.
Also, we are just as surprised by our tea as the English and some of us even know how to make proper tea in a proper teapot.
We are clearly confused as to which side of the Atlantic we're on, I am thinking.
Poutine: absolutely revolting. Give me beans on toast any time.
Brilliant! Finally got around to visiting the times recommended list of blogs- this is HILARIOUS! Totally true and fantastically written!
Afterall, what's wrong with airy rooms and a nice cupa.
Well, the vow is "till death do us part" so you ought to be OK.
Monkey, Mme Dion appears to have a small but raging electrical storm playing over her pate.
Louis (for it was he)
"the breeze that is coming through the badly-ventilated window"
Hang on a minute... if it's badly ventilated, doesn't that imply it's not doing much venting and is therefore lacking in breezes? Just saying, like.
And... I have to confess I've never understood toast racks, for they do indeed invariably contain cold toast. And I am so fanatical about toast being warm that I will return it to the toaster / grill after I have buttered it, just to make sure it reaches my mouth in a non-cold state.
Actually I think scientists should be paying far more attention to toast. It comes out super-finger-burning-hot, and is yet extra-cold within seconds. The mega-hotness prevents you from buttering it straightaway without singeing your extremities or dropping it cos you're trying to hold it by the very tippy-tip-tips of your digits, and yet you really want to butter it as soon as you can cos otherwise it will be too cold and you'll have to stick it back under the grill. It surely contains magical thermal properties which could be harnessed for something really useful, like spaceships or maybe tea cosies?
It has extra-special Stealth Blackening abilities, too. From Just Right to Burnt in the blink of an eye.
It's magic, I tell you.
Yes. Or something. Hmm.
Post a Comment