I am reading Julia Childs' "My Life in France." It's such an interesting book and wonderful to see how much she loves Paris. On one page, she takes a trip to England, and boy, does she let her opinion rip!
Here's what she says:
"One evening we stopped at a charming Tudor inn, where we were served boiled chicken, with little feathers sticking out of the skin, partially covered with a typical English white sauce. Aha! At last I would try the infamous sauce that the French were so chauvinistic about. The sauce was composed of flour and water (not even chicken bouillon) and hardly any salt. It was truly horrible to eat....
I admired the English immensely for all that they had endured, and they were certainly honorable, and stopped their cars for pedestrians, and called you 'sir' or 'madam,' and so on. But after a week there, I began to feel wild. It was those ruddy English faces, so held in by duty, the sense of 'what is done' and 'what is not done,' and always swigging tea and chirping, that made me want to scream like a hyena."
Disagree with what she says or not, I think her writing is fantastic.
7 comments:
Hold on a moment E, she's talking about 1948 isn't she?, there was still food rationing here in those days!.
I suspect most people had more important things than "bouillon" on their mind then, like rebuilding their lives etc. sounds like a typical whiny American tourist to me.. :)
If you've watched American cinema from that era Steve you should know that during that time Americans were adored the world over, people from other countries fawned over us, often even in an obsequious manner. Those were the good old days, when the rest of the world smiled with glee at the smart dialogue of the American.
YES GW THIS WAS WRITEN IN THE DAYS WHEN THEIR WAS STILL A DECENT EDUCATION SYSTEM IN PLACE ACROSS THE ATLANATIC SO MRS CHILD KNEW HOW TO SPELL AND MAKE A SENTENCE. THESE DAYS I BET SHE WOULD NOT EVEN KNOW HOW TO SPELL BUOIILLION EVEN IF SHE WERE ALIVE
That's a book I want to read, too! Did you get it here in England? I couldn't find it at the library, so I was thinking I might pick it up when we're in Texas in November.
Theresa, buy that one, and also *Julie and Julia* by blogger-turned-published-literary-star Julia Powell---read them together, then see the movie.
I SO often deplore movies made from books (or blogs, in this case) but I have to give the cinema version of "Julie and Julia" a resounding,jabbing thumbs-up! Meryl Streep flat-out stole the show, of course, and left no stone unturned in her spot-on portrayal of Ms. Child.
And in a rare moment of Hollywood thoughtful intelligence, the decision was made to eradicate (except for one or two lines) the tiresome potty-mouth "goddamn-fuck-shit" stream of language on Powell's original blog. It's funny in the book, once you get used to it, but I thought it was brilliant of the producers to put the kibosh on the cussin' in the screenplay---not for "censorship" purposes, but so that mothers could take their young daughters to the film and enjoy it together.
Those books (and the movie) have been a highlight of my summer! Hope you enjoy them, too...
Theresa, I ordered it from Amazon for about £5. It's GREAT - am really enjoying it. I didn't like the part of the movie with Julie in it -- but loved the Julia part. Meryl Streep was wonderful.
Steve, yes, she wrote that during rationing after WW2 but what I loved was her writing style, not really concerned with whether its accurate or not. Her writing is so vivid -- her words just punch a reader in the face!
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