Please tell me this is a joke. A food court at a Congressional office building has renamed their french fries “freedom fries”, in protest of France’s refusal to, well, not be French.
And for breakfast, we now have . . . freedom toast.
Seriously, this is so goddamn ridiculous. Even the French seem to be embarrassed for us:
Any Republicans care to defend their party, since it’s a couple of GOP types behind this? These are serious times, and these doofuses (doofodes? doofi?) care about what’s on a fricking menu? It’s good to see that no matter what’s going on in the world, empty symbolism is always at the front of a politician’s heart.
Well, as a Republican, I say to only way to defend this is that it is really funny. At least to me. Now, can I get those freedom fries with Hot Dog that has liberty cabbage on it?
HAHA. thats pretty much what i was thinking. Not only are we acting juvenile and arrogant, but we are doing this because the French are not willing to give the green light for war. That must make us look real good.
This is so inane. Our politicians sure must have a low assessment of the average American’s intellect.
I tend to agree with Gore Vidal’s observation that there is a direct ratio between the typical american politician’s IQ and the scuff marks on his knuckles. A not so subtle reference to the long arms of an Ape.
And then again it’s been years since I read Vidal’s essay. Could my memory have dimmed in the interval? Was he referring to the typical politician or to the typical American? Oh, well, cause and effect.
It’s not a new idiocy though. German Shepherds were renamed Police Dogs in WWI and hamburgers were called, I believe, Liberty Steaks. DreadCthulhu has already pointed out that sauerkraut became “Liberty Cabbage.”
At the beginning of WWII people refused to buy Japanese made goods from stores even though the Japanese had long since been paid for them and the store owner was the only one hurt by the practice.
quote: X~Slayer(ALE)
"The french are one to talk.
They call french fries pomme fritte which is short for pomme de terre fritte which literally translates to ‘fried apples of the earth’"*
Isn’t it a little foolish to teehee because something in the French language translates literally into something odd in English? Gee, the word “gift” in German translates into “poison” in English. Ain’t that a thigh-slapper?
Racist is not the right term, but there’s something not very different about trying to punish the particular policy of a government at one time in history by being nasty and spiteful about its name and culture.
What I think is most hilarious about this is the arrogant assumption that the US has a monopoly on “freedom” simply b/c its government supports this war. Are the French less free than we are b/c their government’s policy differs from our government’s policy? Isn’t the idea of demonizing the French b/c of their opinion antithetical to freedom of speech and freedom of thought? To be more consistent I think they ought to start serving “Hypocrite Fries” smothered in “You’re either with us or against us Sauce.”
yes, cckerberos, Cecil had it wrong.
French fries come from belgium, and French actually is “frenched” which means cut in strips.
So frenched food is food cut in strips.
french fries should actually be referred to as frenched fries. As it is food that is both cut in strips AND fried.
I think it’s a fine idea. It’s a way to quietly show your disagreement with the policies of another country. As I am not yet entirely convinced of the rationale behind the seemingly hasty rush to war I will remove all references to the countries I disagree with from my vocabulary.
I will show my concern toward the US by from now on referring to a schoolbus as simply a schoolb, the word ‘usually’ will now be just ‘ually’ and the ancient counting instrument will, of course, be an abac.
As I can’t think of any words containing U and K consecutively Tony Blair will escape my wrath for now.
Not 100% sure on the accuracy of this, but WDVE radio reported about the ‘freedom fries’ thing this morning and also mentioned that what we in the U.S. call American cheese is known as Canadian cheese in Canada.
Any Canadians know if that’s accurate and if so, why the different names?
Actually, what we in the US call French dressing is very like this orange stuff that the French call “sauce Americaine.” Food names tend to be regional even within different countries. How foreign get attributed to foodstuffs (particular in the case of so-called French toast which does not exist in France) I don’t know, but I doubt it follows a consistent pattern.
