Paris Notebook: 'Jack' Chirac Is Far From Being All Right

The Telegraph ^ | January 1, 2004 | Philip Delves Broughton

[quidnunc]

Paris – It promises to be a big year here. The Queen is coming for the centenary of the Entente Cordiale, a murky little moment in cross-Channel diplomacy now being cast in an epic light by political celebration-seekers, and George W Bush will be over for the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

I saw Bush the last time he visited the Elysée and his manners were fraying at the end of a long sweep through Europe. He referred to Jacques Chirac as "Jack" and mocked an American reporter who asked a question in French, as if he were the class jock with no patience for swottery.

His preppy swagger, though, should highlight Chirac's sudden physical decline. Once the ideal of the smoothie-chops older Frenchman, he is shrivelling before our eyes. His cheeks are hollowing out, and he wears a hearing aid, though his private office weirdly continues to deny it. He lingers on in the presidency like the smell of wet cabbage in a nursing home.

It's a shame for the French to have had successive presidents, Mitterrand and now Chirac, waste away before them. It has created a sclerotic political atmosphere that is no reflection of the generations below who are ambitious, desperate for change and increasingly moving to London or New York to find it.

• Not long after I got to France, I wrote an article decrying French food. I received numerous letters agreeing that the stuff was muck and a few telling me I was a barbarian whose tastes had been warped by four years in America.

Eighteen months on, a review of my position is in order. And yes, except at the highest levels, most of it is still dreadful. Which is really the point. It never changes. Britain's culinary revolution has yet to happen here. The French still think their restaurant food is fabulous.

So I have a resolution for visitors coming to France this year. If you don't like what you get, send it back. If they sneer and tell you you know nothing, ignore them. Eat the filth and they will never learn.

-snip-

[jungleboy]

"He lingers on in the presidency like the smell of wet cabbage in a nursing home."

Touche

[CatoRenasci]

If you don't like what you get, send it back. If they sneer and tell you you know nothing, ignore them. Eat the filth and they will never learn.

So true. In Paris with my grandfather at a Michelin 3 star restaurant, he sent back a sophisticated dish as improperly prepared. The maitre d' made some nasty comments, and my grandfather proceeded, in French perfected when he was a graduate student at the Sorbonne some 60 years before, to tell the maitre d' exactly what was wrong with the preparation (it was all over my head). After the maitre d' went back to the kitchen, the chef himself came out, profusely apologized and agreed that he had introduced certain (shall we say) short cuts in his work, and that, in any event, the maitre d' (who'd heard my grandfather speaking English with me) had told him he was serving a couple of Americans. Most instructive.

[stubernx98]

Great! I spent many months in Paris, and one night by meyself, ended up in a French resturaunt, with 2 waiters for each table. Got a a table in the middle(ala Steve Martin in the "Loneley Guy") Got poor service & rotton food. Later when I asked for the check, my waiter ignored me. I stood up and sauntered out of there, and did not pay the bill. I dined, and didn't even have to dash.

If I went out with a French host, I usually get decent food. One time I spent $2000 on a lunch for 4 of us(basically a bribe because of a contract problem). Stumbled apon a Burger King, and finally got some good food.

[breakem]

I'm not much of a gourmet, but here goes. We had several excellent meals in France. Mostly in Paris and the homes of friends in the Alsace region.

One Saturday our friends took us to a winery in the Vogues mountains. We had a great meal with beef as tender and tasteful as the best places I've been in the states. We decided to order dessert after noticing an award on the wall for best dessert in France. My wife asked which of the desserts won. The waiter replied, why, all of them madam. Good stuff.

I was surprised at the number of fast food shops in downtown Paris. People grabbing bad sandwiches and walking and eating their lunches, something we don't do much here. Very unFrench.

[AmericanVictory]

Why does the lamestream refer to the
French as our "allies?"

[CatoRenasci]

I hear you. Of course, the experience I described was around 1960, so the cost was lower. In the '70s, I spent some time in Paris, while on an extended stay in Germany. I amused myself by going to a few of the same places with companions, separated by a week, the first time speaking English amongst ouselves, the second time, German. We were treated remarkably better as Germans!

I never walked out on a bill, but once, in New York, I was so rudely treated in a Neapolitan restaurant that I disputed the credit card charge, and American Express backed me up!