NOTE: We have experienced what is euphemized as a "technology failure". We realize that France continues to self-destruct, that French students are even now re-fashioning a super-terriffic-nonpareil France with the ashes of the super-great-but-could-be-better France they are burning. Below is a filler till we recover ourselves sufficiently to write up the news.

In last year's run-up to awarding the host city for the 2012 Olympics, Jack, by his own lights the very soul of politesse, remarked of British cuisine:

"You can't trust people who cook as badly as that. After Finland, it's the country with the worst food."

The Telegraph commented:

Even the most chauvinistic French chefs now acknowledge that London overtook Paris long ago as the culinary capital of Europe.

Jack -- apparently not much of a food critic -- and Paris went on to lose to Mr. Blair and London.

We have posted elsewhere (for example, here and here) on the decline of French cuisine and the corresponding ascent of British cuisine.

GRUB SNUB!
Jack Decries Untrusty Brits And Their Olympics-Stealing Cooking

But the Brits are sports and in the person of Lady Penny Holmes, wife of the British ambassador to France, Sir John Holmes, offers the French some instruction in that British succès de cuisine, the sandwich.

BREAD AND BUTTER ISSUE FOR FRANCE

PARIS March 11, 2006 (Telegraph) - Sandwichs, co-written with an old friend, Susan Mallet, with whom Lady Holmes once ran a London catering firm, opens with a description of the 4th Earl of Sandwich's demand in 1762 for a slice of beef to be served between two pieces of bread so that he could continue his card game uninterrupted and without making a mess. It contains 28 recipes, from the plain, triangular "British cucumber sandwich" to the more elaborate.

MINISANDWICHS AU CONCOMBRE

Pour 4 sandwichs
- 8 tranches de pain de mie complet
- 1 concombre
- 20 g de beurre
- Sel, poivre

Découper le concombre en fines rondelles 20 minutes avant de préparer les sandwichs. Saupoudrer d'une demi-cuillerée à café de sel, remuer et mettre à dégorger dans une passoire.

Au bout de 20 minutes, goûter une lamelle de concombre.
Si elle est trop salée, rincer à l'eau froide. Eponger le concombre avec du papier absorbant.

Beurrer les tranches de pain. Disposer des rondelles de concombre sur quatre tranches de pain. Les lamelles doivent se chevaucher et la couche doit être assez épaisse. Poivrer.

Couvrir avec les quatre autres tranches de pain. Couper la croûte et découper chaque sandwich en quatre triangles. Les Anglais ont pour coutume d'accompagner ces sandwichs d'une tasse de thé earl grey agrémentée d'une rondelle de citron ou d'un nuage de lait.

At a book signing in the Lafayette department store in Paris, a French woman turned up her nose sharply at one of Lady Holmes's creations, a combination of brie, apple and walnut. But others enthused about the growing British reputation for innovation and variety in food.

Lady Holmes: "You do still get French people saying what a shame it is our food is so terrible. Whether from memories of exchanges or through pre-conceptions, there is this image of boiled beef and vegetables. It is a cliché, of course, but it's so difficult to persuade the French, who jealously guard their own precious cuisine, that things have moved on."

With the two-hour, multi-course French lunch fast becoming a thing of the past, sales of sandwiches have rocketed in recent years. They now stand at 1.2 billion a year, with the pre-packed British-style wedge accounting for a quarter of them.

The French magazine L'Express ("Lady Holmes reine du sandwich") [posed] the question: "Do we have to love le sandwich british?"

Lady Holmes: "Actually, our sandwiches show the diversity and quality of British food and more and more French people recognise that we lead the field."

Whether those people will come to include President Jacques Chirac remains to be seen. Remembering his aside to German and Russian leaders last summer - "one cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad" - she sent a copy of her book to the Elysée Palace. Mr Chirac is yet to reply.

Oh, we wouldn't wait on Jack, Lady Holmes.

The book can be purchased here.

PFFT (What is this?): Climb-down 5 | Rayonnement français 0

"You do still get French people saying what a shame it is our food is so terrible."

Only the French? Some people ought to travel more.

As for London taking over Paris in the culinary area, much progress have been made (unlike their Rugby team) in the more high-end restaurants at last, but for a simple omelette aux champignons around the corner, I'll still stick with Paris.

M. Zmx believes himself the only person to have traveled sufficiently to comment on, well, on anything. Lady Holmes apparently needs to get out more before venturing comment on how she finds the world.

M. Zmx gives the blasé chauvinist riposte -- we expect nothing less from him -- but had he followed our links he would have learned that British common-fare is as good as British fancy eating:

When the legendary American food writer Ruth Reichl brought her team of restaurant reviewers to Britain, they were bowled over by the fare on offer. ... But while top restaurants like Gordon Ramsay and the Fat Duck at Bray, both of which have three Michelin stars, inspired her admiration, it was a £3 toasted cheese and onion sandwich from a market stall that most blew her away. ... Yesterday she said: "The food across all levels is fantastic in London. There has been an enormous change. But the one highlight I remember the most is this cheese sandwich."

DGB

M. Zmx believes himself the only person to have traveled sufficiently blah blah blah

Not the "only person" of course, but certainly more than the petty insular and self-important auteur Damian Bennett.

M. Zmx believes himself omniscient. Here he claims comparative knowledge of our travels, something never disclosed to him. M. Zmx self-inventing the world -- and everyone in it -- to his satisfaction -- there is the petty insular self-important mind at work.

As we have posted elsewhere, M. Zmx's worldview is not burdened by the bother of facts. Why, M. Zmx's current worldview is not burdened by his earlier worldviews (see comment #7 and our reply at comment #55).

But let us suppose M. Zmx has tramped all about the world or at least tramped about the cocktail lounges of France's post-colonial vacation spots. What has it gained him? Has he observed the world as an ethnologist, which he seems to imply? As a political scientist? As a curious tourist? If so, why does he show up here pretending to be a typical narrow-minded franchouille?

If M. Zmx has traveled much, he doesn't appear to have seen much. We are left to wonder if M. Zmx has ever seen anything, at home or abroad, that did not tidily confirm his preconceptions.

DGB