The Mystery of Mushrooms in France Sunday August 10th 2008, 10:00 am
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conspiracy theories,
daily life,
environment,
food and drinks,
Languedoc-Roussillon,
nature,
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“Paris Mushrooms, it’s when they’re in your mouth that they’re the happiest.”
Aside from this ad promoting Champignons de Paris (button mushrooms) in France being very, very cute, I’m wondering why the mushroom industry (if there’s a mushroom industry) needs to advertise in the first place. Is there an overproduction of mushrooms? I rarely see ads for other veggies like cucumbers or celery or artichokes or for any veggies, ever; really, this is strange to me. Is there a silent mushroom consumption grève (strike) or something? … So much so that mushroom farmers need a push from ads?
Just a couple of weeks ago, our neighbors asked us if we had any extra mushrooms they could borrow because they couldn’t find any anywhere near our neighborhood. My sweetie, being even more of a conspiracy theorist than I am (yea, I know! unbelievable but true!), suggested that the radioactive leaks lately have been compromising the mushrooms, which perhaps were then removed from the market. Apparently, mushrooms excessively absorb radiation, which is an enormous help to people around…unless they eat those mushrooms…
tags: france, mushrooms, champignons de paris, radioactive contamination, uranium leaks
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The Dalai Lama in France 
From AFP:
“The Dalai Lama kicks off Tuesday an 11-day visit to France that threatened to spark a crisis between Paris and Beijing, until President Nicolas Sarkozy quashed speculation he would meet the Tibetan spiritual leader.
Planned more than two years ago, the Nobel peace laureate’s French visit turned suddenly political after a Chinese crackdown on unrest in Tibet in March that sparked international outrage in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.
Sarkozy’s initial threat to boycott the Olympic opening ceremony, together with rowdy pro-Tibet protests during the passage of the Olympic flame through Paris, fuelled a months-long diplomatic spat with Beijing.
And a decision by the opposition-held Paris city hall to name the 73-year-old spiritual guide an honorary citizen further fanned tensions.
Though Sarkozy decided last month to attend Friday’s opening, noting progress in talks between China and the Dalai Lama, he failed to prevent a wave of protests targeting French commercial interests in China.
Speculation over a meeting with the Buddhist leader in France since then continued to pour oil on the fire, with the Chinese ambassador in Paris warning of “serious consequences” for bilateral relations.
The French leader’s office finally announced Wednesday that no meeting would take place, saying it was the Dalai Lama’s decision.
The Dalai Lama’s representative in France Wangpo Bashi told AFP that the “timing is not right”, saying a meeting during the Olympics risked setting back talks between Tibetan and Chinese parties.
Instead, Sarkozy’s wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy — who under French law has no official function — will attend the inauguration by Dalai Lama of a temple in southern France on August 22.
On Wednesday, the Buddhist leader is scheduled to meet some 250 senators and deputies from the French parliamentary group on Tibet, before holding talks with leaders of the French Tibetan community.
The rest of his August 12-23 stay will be devoted to religious visits, in the Paris region and elsewhere, and a six-day teaching cycle in the western city of Nantes.
“It is first and foremost a spiritual, religious visit,” said Bashi, who heads the Tibet Bureau in Paris. “That is how it was always intended.”
France is home to an estimated 770,000 Buddhists, according to the French Buddhist union, three quarter of them of Asian origin.
The Dalai Lama has visited France a dozen times since 1982, meeting with city or government officials and once with the president, the late Francois Mitterrand, in 1993.
France’s left-wing Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and junior minister for human rights Rama Yade have both said they would be willing to meet him, but no such plans have been announced.
Sarkozy has been accused at home of flip-flopping on the issue of the Olympics and undermining France’s credibility in China.
Critics note that other Western leaders, including of the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany and Britain have met the Dalai Lama in the past two years without jeopardising their relations with Beijing.
Speaking from the Olympics opening ceremony, Sarkozy insisted Friday the meeting “has merely been postponed”.
The Dalai Lama’s representative confirmed that a meeting would take place before the end of the year.
China sent troops into Tibet in 1950 and officially “liberated” it the following year. The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of seeking independence for Tibet and of fomenting unrest in the territory to sabotage the Olympic Games.
The spiritual leader insists he wants autonomy and religious freedom rather than independence for Tibet, and has sent Beijing his “prayers and best wishes” for the success of the Olympics.”
tags: france, dala lama, His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso
Can We Stop with the Ooh La La’s and the French Maids, Already?
I’ve more than had enough of the clichéd sexist depiction of French maids, and the misuse of “ooh la la.” First, French maids don’t look like this. Ever. Secondly, if there were any French maids like this, which there aren’t, they would never say “ooh la la” in a light-hearted, provocative way, drinking wine and sporting a mini skirt and some fish net stockings.
Although these wines are from the south of France, the California company‘s marketing people are obviously NOT French. I do see the silliness and play on words here and the wine might be legitimately good, but stop it, already!
In retrospect, I’m beginning to love the wine labels with the pissing fat guys.
[via]
tags: france, wine labels, french maid, cliches that refuse to die, wrong
Franco-American Conversations: Another Leak at the Tricastin Nuclear Power Plant 
Two nights ago on the evening news Francoise Laborde lightly mentioned that there was yet ANOTHER uranium leak at the Tricastin nuclear power plant near Avignon. This makes a reported 3 radioactive leaks in the last couple of months, and 2 leaks at the same plant. Only partially paying attention, I wasn’t sure I heard correctly. Me, “Wait. WHAT??!” But the subject was over in literally 20 seconds. No elaboration of any kind. This seemed like substantial news but it was slipped hidden in between back to school news and international news (video archive Edition du Mercredi 6 Août 2008).
Me: That nuclear power plant in Tricastin is 30 years old or so, and it’s encountering more and more problems.
Him: Yup.
Me: Is this an accident waiting to happen, here? I mean, it’s literally falling apart at the seams.
Him: Probably.
Me: Should we get the hell outta Dodge?
Him: Dodge?
Me: Should we leave France? I don’t want to be here when that things blows. You know, a French Chernobyl.
Him: Don’t worry about it. It probably has already blown.
Me: Um. Great. No wonder I’ve been feeling so crappy lately.
Link: Tricastin: Encore une fuite cachée? (in French)
tags: france, uranium leaks, tricastin, radiation, contamination
French Wine Terrorists Are At it Again From time:
“Too much wine, it is known, can cause violent behavior. But few have gone as far as the grape growers of France’s Languedoc-Roussillon region, the world’s biggest wine-growing area by volume. Hurting from overproduction and cheap imports and punished lately by the rising cost of gas, a small group of local winegrowers has resorted to “wine terrorism” in a violent attempt to shock the French government into helping them.
On July 26, police arrested a vineyard farmer from the region for production and possession of illegal explosives. Apprehended in a hospital where he was being treated for injuries suffered when those explosives unexpectedly detonated, 34-year-old Jérôme Soulère confessed to police that he’d been responsible for the July 2006 bombing of a tax-collection office in a neighboring village. He also admitted, police say, to authoring the failed bombing last year of a site the Tour de France was set to pass the following day.
Those incidents are just two of many in a series of violent and destructive acts by local grape growers over the past three years that has targeted public and private buildings, supermarkets, tanker trucks hauling cheap imported wine, and businesses accused of gouging growers with ever shrinking prices. Claiming responsibility: a clandestine group known as….”
Read the full article
Related: Don’t Mess with French Farmers
tags: france, wine, vandals, wine lake
Tax on Snacks 
Get ready to pay more for snacks, anything considered fattening and food and beverage items deemed generally unhealthful.
The French government needs money! Forget about them caring about the health and well-being of the people, they’ve blatantly come out and stated they will tax these foods because it will be another tool to help the country’s financial recovery.
What are they taxing? “Certains produits “trop gras, trop sucrés, trop salés qui ne sont pas de stricte nécessité” Products that are too fatty, too sugary, too salty, that aren’t of strict necessity will be taxed a whopping 19.6%. Even one of the last remaining affordable items in France, wine, will be subject to this tax. KWA?!
This law will not go into effect for a while, so you have some time to try to accept this new change, which will be hard to swallow for many junk food junkies.
Article: Le Monde
Related: Roasted Chicken Flavor Potato Chips, Ketchup Flavored French Fry Chips, Smoked Ham Flavored Bugles
france, tax on junkfood, deficit
Herpes Killing Young French Oysters 
From reuters:
“A herpes virus is killing young oysters in France because they have spent too much energy developing their sexual organs rather than their natural defenses, an oyster crisis team has found.
Scientists have spent weeks investigating a mysterious surge in mortality among the mollusks that the French love to devour with lemon and white wine.
France’s main marine research institute, Ifremer, set up the crisis team on July 3 and its members have been working flat out to understand why 40 to 100 percent of oysters aged 12 to 18 months were dying in all but one of France’s breeding areas.
An Ifremer spokeswoman said on Monday the team had established that a virus called Oyster Herpesvirus type 1, or OsHV-1, was killing young oysters, helped by unfavorable weather conditions that had weakened the mollusks.
“We had a warm winter followed by a rainy spring, which caused high levels of planktonic plant life to develop,” spokeswoman Johanna Martin said.
“This meant that the oysters were particularly well fed and spent a lot of energy developing their sexual organs to the detriment of their natural reserves, leaving them vulnerable to OsHV-1,” she said.
There is no cure for OsHV-1.
Ifremer is continuing its investigations and admits that other factors could be contributing, such as toxic seaweed or Vibrio Splendidus, another virus present in France this year.
France produces about 110,000 tonnes of oysters a year, according to Ifremer data. It is the world’s fourth biggest producer after China, which alone accounts for 83 percent of world production, followed by Korea and Japan.
All of France’s oyster breeding areas, of which 90 percent are on the western coast, are affected by high mortality rates except one area at Arcachon in the southwest. Scientists do not know why Arcachon oysters have been spared.”
The Art of Street Food: Crêpes There’s one region where you will never be disappointed by the street side-made crêpes: Bretagne. I don’t know how or why or what exactly is the reason for this. The butter? Perhaps crêpes are the regional specialty because they are so good here. No. They aren’t just good here; they’re the BEST. It doesn’t really matter why, I suppose; it simply suffices to accept that it just is like this in Bretagne – and now I know. I also know now that I have to get back there for more. I had a simple salted butter crêpe, which melted in my mouth. My stomach grumbles thinking about it.
france , travel , bretagne , brittany , crêpes , street food , butter
The French Are Eating In More and Dining Out Less From the timesonline:
“The world economic crisis has hit borrowers in the US, banks in Britain and homeowners in Spain. Now it has claimed perhaps its most startling victim to date: the Gallic gastronome.
Lunches are being skipped, dinners shortened and apéritifs overlooked as the French cut back on their most cherished pleasure in an attempt to save their euros, according to new figures. Restaurants, bistros and cafés are reporting an historic drop in takings this summer amid signs that le pays de la gastronomie is turning to sandwiches and picnics.
Chefs say that the rare customers still reserving tables are resorting to one-course meals and a single glass of wine, sipped with glacial caution.
Diners are tending to abandon les entrées, les desserts and e café under a drastic cost-saving drive, they say.
“People have a lot less money now so when they go away on holiday, they have to chose what to spend it on and they often decide to cut the food budget,” Francis Attrazic, the vice-chairman of the French Union of Café, Restaurant and Hotel Owners, said.
“Lunch is disappearing almost completely a lot of the time, people don’t always have an apéritif any more and the evening meal is being lightened.” A survey by his union revealed a fall of up to 30 per cent in restaurant and café custom in tourist regions this month compared with July last year.
The study suggested that the number of holidaymakers is stable but that they are spending less on food. The findings do not apply to foreigners, notably the British, Germans and Russians, who are still dining in style. The French, though, are forgoing les plaisirs de la table.
On the French Riviera, for instance, restaurants no longer have a key role for holidaymakers, who tend to prefer a sandwich at lunchtime and a show rather than a meal, the survey said. In the south west, chefs said that their restaurants were alarmingly empty at midday and in the evening.
Interviewed on Europe 1 radio yesterday, a café owner in Toulouse said: “People just don’t have enough money to hang around in bars any more.
“And when they come, they consume a lot less wine, no more than is strictly necessary. They make their glass last a long time and they don’t knock back one glass after another these days.” Guy-Noël Chatelain, a partner in OC&C consultancy, which spe-cialises in consumer trends, said that the French were rediscovering the picnic and the sandwich to make a dwindling disposable income go farther.
His words were borne out by the Saint Martin canal in Paris yesterday where Raphaëlle Davin, a 26-year-old office worker, was eating a salad she had bought for €6.60 (£5.18). She said that she would have paid double that for a meal in a restaurant.”
france, french, changing eating habits, troubled economy, tightening belts , weak spending power, france, pouvoir d’achat
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