I was traveling in northern France recently with my brother and dad. I speak French pretty well but my culinary vocabulary is a bit lacking so I couldn’t always tell what exactly the menu said. So we’re at this pub in Arras, and my brother has this bad habit of simply pointing to a menu item and not even attempting to pronounce it because his french is non-existent. So he points at something on the menu and the guy is like “le Welsh?” and I have no idea what a Welsh is or what my brother thought he was ordering so I just tell him that he wants whatever he’s pointing at. And what arrives is essentially a large bowl of greasy, melted cheese with a slice of bread at the bottom. It was the only genuinely nasty thing any of us got the entire time we were in France. My brother learned after that to just make an attempt to pronounce the thing on the menu so he wouldn’t get burned again.
On a more positive note, when we were in Bretagne, I tried their regional Mead as well as the “Galette Saucisse” (basically a savoury crepe wrapped around a sausage) and both were amazing. I still have dreams about the Galette. I wish there were Breton crèperies here in Canada.
Haha I just had an excellent poutine from a food truck yesterday. Nice big cheese curds and layered with pulled pork 😋 I suppose Canadian cuisine is alright too.
Despite being a British food, the Welsh is apparently pretty popular in Northern France. My brother even picked up a Welsh fridge magnet from the Arras tourism gift shop after his ordeal.
I’m lucky that some fragment of French baking has permeated into Canada by way of Québec. We have decent Pain-Au-Chocolat (although they call it chocolatine in Québec) and Croissants in a lot of Canadian cafés and bakeries (small ones, not chains). Not as good as in France, but still decent. I remember thinking I was going to have trouble with continental breakfast since I’m used to eating a big breakfast, but the French viennoise breakfast with some fruit and coffee is actually great.
I also really enjoyed the waffles when I visited Belgium.
I was traveling in northern France recently with my brother and dad. I speak French pretty well but my culinary vocabulary is a bit lacking so I couldn’t always tell what exactly the menu said. So we’re at this pub in Arras, and my brother has this bad habit of simply pointing to a menu item and not even attempting to pronounce it because his french is non-existent. So he points at something on the menu and the guy is like “le Welsh?” and I have no idea what a Welsh is or what my brother thought he was ordering so I just tell him that he wants whatever he’s pointing at. And what arrives is essentially a large bowl of greasy, melted cheese with a slice of bread at the bottom. It was the only genuinely nasty thing any of us got the entire time we were in France. My brother learned after that to just make an attempt to pronounce the thing on the menu so he wouldn’t get burned again.
On a more positive note, when we were in Bretagne, I tried their regional Mead as well as the “Galette Saucisse” (basically a savoury crepe wrapped around a sausage) and both were amazing. I still have dreams about the Galette. I wish there were Breton crèperies here in Canada.
Interesting! For people curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_rarebit
Galettes from Bretagne are indeed nice
I wish we had good poutine in Europe!
Haha I just had an excellent poutine from a food truck yesterday. Nice big cheese curds and layered with pulled pork 😋 I suppose Canadian cuisine is alright too.
Despite being a British food, the Welsh is apparently pretty popular in Northern France. My brother even picked up a Welsh fridge magnet from the Arras tourism gift shop after his ordeal.
Seems like a nice memory for that experience 😄
Yeah, you gotta laugh about it. When you’re on vacation you can’t let stuff get you down. It’s all about trying new things anyway.
I would do terrible, terrible things to get a good european bakery in the US. The croissants don’t even come close and it makes me sad
I’m lucky that some fragment of French baking has permeated into Canada by way of Québec. We have decent Pain-Au-Chocolat (although they call it chocolatine in Québec) and Croissants in a lot of Canadian cafés and bakeries (small ones, not chains). Not as good as in France, but still decent. I remember thinking I was going to have trouble with continental breakfast since I’m used to eating a big breakfast, but the French viennoise breakfast with some fruit and coffee is actually great.
I also really enjoyed the waffles when I visited Belgium.