I know where you got those shoes. (You got them on your feet.)
I read widely, and love late 1800s/early 1900s stuff [tons free on Project Gutenberg] and typically get told by people who find out what I am reading that they can’t read that crap that has foreign stuff in it [frequently quotes in French, German, Greek and Latin] often in the form of letters the person is reading [I seem to recall Agatha Christie has a fair amount of quotes in nonEnglish sprinkled wwithin]
I can read French, Spanish, some Italian and some German with fair fluency and know how to use a dictionary if I don’t know a word, and I can take a fair stab at Latin from the other Romance languages I can cope with …
And I regularly go to furrin restaurants and have no issues ordering - I had a delightful afternoon at an Ethiopian place, sitting effectively at Family Table learning how to make injeera and discussing spice blends and why Americans prefer lamb to mutton. We did some playing at charades, and falling back on French and some smattering of Arabic tradeslang I learned back in my college days. I have no problem with mangling other languages and sounding silly, it shows one is willing to be friendly and not an ugly asshole American.
I didn’t get it until now… I’m also reminded of Fandid Famera with Allen Funt. That one, too, kinda needs to be explained for a younger generation.
Actually, historically, it was done that way – menu in French only, and culinary concepts mentioned, not explained. A person of snif snif breeding would’ve been able to handle it, otherwise was out of luck. Or could ask a waiter for help. Reference: Menu of the Week: The Waldorf-Astoria, 1897
The movie was made in 1975. Back then, the question was a joke because the idea of a woman having a tattoo was so absurd.
Rocky Horror is full of jokes like that:
What have you done with Janet!
Why nothing, why? Do you think I should?
…
What have you done with Brad?
Why nothing, why? Do you think I should?
Janet gasps at the insinuation
Actually, rice is regional. Northern Chinese rarely eat rice, preferring bau (steamed flour buns). And in higher end multi-course Chinese meals, no rice or noodles are on the menu. The only starch are the buns for Peking Duck or kau yuk (braised pork). Everything else is meat, vegetables or a mix of the two.
Look around the next time you’re in Chinese restaurant and you’ll likely see few Chinese families with a bowl of rice on their table or any type of noodles.
The same holds true for Japanese and Korean cuisine. A high end kaiseki meal won’t have any type of rice or starch. And I watch a lot Korean shows and I rarely see anyone eat rice with their take out or dine in meals.
I agree with BrickBat that for Western “meat and potato” eaters, the proportion of starch to protein and vegetables is far lower in most Asian cuisine. Leading to hunger quicker.
Ummmm…I want Chinese food now. Going to order some. With fried rice!
Exactly my meaning as well. Perhaps I didn’t convey this as clearly as I could have.
The Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner. I have the original edition, but I want this one.
https://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Alice-150th-Anniversary-Deluxe/dp/0393245438
I don’t feel the understanding of those jokes has changed.
Re: Limburger, there is a Buster Brown comic that revolves around it. I’ve seen (but can’t find again) a later “cleanup” of the strip, recolored apparently for republication. But not only did they change the artwork, they also reworked the text because apparently they thought a modern audience would not understand it. “Limburger” was replaced with just “cheese.” (“Nosegay” was replaced with something else, too.)
Wow, that strip is certainly dated, especially in the speech and the outfits.
The closing bit of philosophy is right on target, though:
Not mentioned by anybody in the nearby “Shows You Really Miss” thread, by the way.
That is a good point, worth emphasizing. Haute cuisine is a type of cuisine developed in France. It is stylized, expensive, elaborate, extravagant, and sometimes deliberately exotic, and (historically) only eaten by the really privileged, not the bourgeois or hoi polloi. It is also not at all regular or typical French cuisine that people normally eat every day. Maybe worth making fun of, in the same vein as the “otters’ noses, larks’ tongues, ocelot spleens, wrens’ livers…”, and of course all the prince-and-the-pauper jokes about some regular guy finding himself there and having no clue what any of the dishes are, being shocked when he sees them, not knowing which fork to use, and so on is an instance of a standard trope.
My first job was an a pizza place in Texas back in 1993. We had anchovies but hardly anyone ever ordered them. I hated when people ordered them because they stank to high heaven and no matter how long I washed my hands the smell would linger.
I was in and out of school after the 6th grade and people don’t get the reference when I say “I’m like Jethro, I have a 6th grade education!” Beverly Hillbillies
I don’t think it’s quite up to the “needs explaining” level, but the joke about (mostly rural) Americans not eating sushi “because it’s bait” is definitely on the outs now that every town with more than a couple of thousand people has a sushi joint.
Actually, Corsica and Sardinia are variant names for the same place – you know, like Holland and the Netherlands, or China and Japan.
Exactly. My small rural town has at least three. They all started off as Chinese restaurants, but each also now has a sushi chef. One is still nominally a Chinese restaurant, while the other two are now Asian fusion restaurants.
That kind of stuff is made in southern Corsica as well…
And, now that you mention it, it seems you can see larvae jumping out of the cheese in the illustration:
