Is it time to quit

[SaligoBay]

Just wiping the tears from my eyes......  Miki, your posts need a Govt Health Warning. 

[Teamedup]

A Grand Day Out, that seems to be how thousands of french people treat a trip to the hyper marches around here on the bank holidays they are open. You can't get near the things, not that I try to. It is just that they can actually clog up the local rocade in their efforts.

I have filled in complaints forms in the past, which are obviously binned as soon as I hand them in as I have never once had feed back from them.

And local shops for local people. I always used to use all  our local shops regularly. There are good reasons why I rarely use them any more. I am very selective these days. You see as with these hypermarkets I've walked out of. If my local shops won't give me proper service I vote with my legs too and go elsewhere.

 

 

[Deimos]

Quote: “…local shops regularly. There are good reasons why I rarely use them any more. I am very selective these days.”

Interesting comment. Before moving to France I read (mostly on a different forum) about how one must integrate, must use the local shops, use the local bar, etc. to be accepted. In practice I moved here and live here. I have sometimes used the local shops, sometimes visited the local bar, etc. but when it suited me. I don’t feel the need to make special efforts to “integrate”. I don’t seek acceptance nor rejection from others, I just live here. Not (too) stand-off’ish but I decided I’m not going to make “false efforts” to do things just to be accepted. I am who I am and people should accept me for that rather than me behaving in a way to specifically gain their acceptance.

I still see (mainly on other forums) people going on about “you must integrate …”. For me (if you live here) its be yourself.

Ian

[Christine Animal]

Bravo Ian !  An that is perhaps the best way to be accepted - be yourself !

Christine

[SaligoBay]

Well said, Ian!   All that "integration" stuff is just so much verbal you-know-what.  

And given that there is such a variety of French people, who do you choose to "integrate" with anyway?    

We got on extremely well with all our old neighbours, but the French family who have bought the house we were in...... keep themselves to themselves, no apéros with anyone, they don't go to village events, they want to put a big electric gate on the open shared drive...... another new French family have built a high wall at the front of the garden, most unfriendly!

I can understand people's enthusiasm, it's nice to be accepted, and to feel a bit special, but the downside of "integration" is that you just become part of the furniture.   Maybe that's the point where people go back to the UK? 

It's a double-edged sword, which is a very dangerous thing in the wrong hands.  Oh, that's almost profound, the temperature must be rising!    Forget it, just ump in the pool and enjoy life!     

 

[Teamedup]

When I moved here I made a huge effort to use all my local shops. I know how it works, you don't use them and then the day you want them and the Casino or butchers or bakers has gone. If nothing else it was in  my own interests that these shops remained open.

Things happen though and places change hands and things happen and places change hands. And I was as integrated as I will ever be donkey's years ago, I'm just another member of this community now. I do actually believe in the concerted effort to integrate thing though. If I hadn't made that effort I wouldn't have the friends, acquainances and one enemy (and his wife) I have.

[Miki]

".....Forget it, just ump in the pool and enjoy life!"

Simple typo, freudian slip or a day in the life SBenisovich,"whoops" am I turning in to "d'entendre man, although I don't think so in this case ? "

[SaligoBay]

All sing together............ What a difference a J makes.....

[Teamedup]

Saligo, you disappoint me, I had hoped that would have been one of the joys of having one's own pool.

[Deby]

2. If you buy in Stupormarkets, you are playing into the hands of the system that is destroying the French way of life. I'm not too sympathetic!!

IanH you surprise me!  Do you have a couple of young kids with you?  Times are changing, I am not a big fan of supermarkets either, but round where I live that is really just what you get, the odd epicerie which sells very tired looking veg and fruit - the owners just waiting to retire (nice as they are). The market is just on Wednesday and Saturday morning and is quite expensive and does not stock the much favoured toilet roll and the various other modern essentials to life.

I also support local shops and when I lived in a french city I shopped locally all the time, supporting these little businesses in favour of Carrefour etc.  Things have changed for me out here in the provences, but it certainly is not like something out of a Year in Provence. 

Also the French see the supermarket as the local employer - I believe it employs 49 people - now that is a fact of french life.

Best,

Deby

[charlie*]

In the short time I've been in France, I am so disappointed with the supermarkets, the nearest to me looks like the kind of u.k supermarket I was dragged round as a kid in the 70s.

For a nation that prides itself on its cuisine ( and don't get me started on that!), I just think choice (or lack of it) is really poor.

[Miki]

[quote]All sing together............ What a difference a J makes.....[/quote]

"What a difference a j makes

There’s a rainbow before me

Skies above can’t be stormy

Since that moment of bliss, that thrilling kiss.....

That ump in the pool" ..............sorry made that last bit up

Apologies to Maria Grever & Stanley Adams.

[opas]

By the time our local shop keeper has caught up with the gossip with the one customer infront of me I could have cycled to our nearest supermarket fo my daily loaf!

SB I will integrate this afternoon and JUMP in the water at our municiple pool

As for doing all my shopping localy....I would have spent up by now and queueing at the RMI office

Mrs O

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Hi,

Of course I buy in Supermarkets. But not much, honestly. Mainly because I can't get fresh (but pasteurised) milk elsewhere.

As for my charmed life. I buy bog rolls in Promocash since my toilet habits are obviously of paramount interest to you. I used to get them in Leader Price, but the quality went down the drain - err - to coin a phrase. I'm well aware the French are plunging headlong down the same shopping abyss as the Brits did 20 years ago. I don't have to like it, nor do I have to emulate it though. I buy my pork from Sylviane & Régis Balat, my chickens from Mme Vialle, my beef & lamb from TradiCorrèze, my ducks from René Larnaudie, my wines from the vignerons, and so on. I know most of my suppliers at the market, and in Argentat & elsewhere, and they know me. It takes me very little more time to do my shopping as I do, and the quality and freshness of what I get is incomparably better. I can even cook English food now, which is more than I could do in the UK - though with the improvements in the availability of decent produce again there, maybe I could envisage it if I lived there.

And Miki, you BUY tomato soup? SHAME on you.

[Miki]

"....And Miki, you BUY tomato soup? SHAME on you"

Of course we both know it was a joke but strangely enough, somewhere along the line I became somewhat addicted to Heinz cream of tomato soup and every now and gain I will need a fix !

Tina makes some of the most wonderful soups using local ingredients that can be bought locally in most parts of the world !!

It is comforting to know though, that you are indeed assisting us in our destruction of French life, from simple milk needs it can escalate !

As far as France following the UK, in many things that is of course quite correct, first the USA, then the UK followed by France but with supermarkets, the French took far shorter a time to start slowly decimating their local shops and some town shopping areas than the UK. The French almost immediately came up with commercial centres on the edges of large towns and sometimes a fair drive outside the local home areas, taking not only the food shopping with them but many of the "high street shops" away from the local spots. In fact, it is not that long ago that some of the UK supermarkets started selling from "pins to elephants" the last time we were back in the UK, we noticed how much more Tescos were selling as far as electric and clothing supplies were concerned.

The French supermarket base is much wider and extremely varied, taking in anything from the proverbial pin to large sit on mowers and in some cases you can always find cars on sale from local garages and concessionnaires. So in fact, it is my belief that the French and their attitude to supermarket shopping and the problems it can create locally, is probably far more advanced than has happened in the UK. I have seen many more, new or otherwise, large supermarkets in the UK in the centre of towns than I have ever seen here in France.

[Teamedup]

There is nothing wrong with canned soup. I make soups, I make some wonderful soups, but I have never managed to make the equivilant of Heinz Tomato Soup. And my I have tried and people have given me recipes, lots of recipes and sworn that they were exactly the same, but obviously they do not taste what I taste when I eat the old Heinz job.

So yes, once every few years I will bring a four pack of Heinz Tomato back with us and we really enjoy it.

 

[Val_2]

Yes, I have to agree with you there. I've also tried many times to make tomato soup from so many different recipes,even from people like Gary Rhodes and others and alas, none ever tasted like the good old canned stuff. I actually preferred Campbells condensed soups,can you still buy those? The packet soups they sell here in abundance are awful, all taste of chemicals and actually the CupaSoups are better,but at the end of the day,nothing is better than a home-made soup whatever flavour it may be.

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Oh dear, oh dear, what have we come to when our definition of excellence in soup is so debased that we judge it by Heinz?

No wonder Jamie Oliver waxes lyrical about debased tastes in the Uk. In fact what you so beautifully illustrate, is the danger of increasingly relying on supermarket food. We lose the reference points that we need to allow us to judge what IS good and what is merely artificially flavour enhanced.

If you want to find out what Cream of Tomato Soup ought to taste like, try this. The quantities suit 6 1 litre sterilising jars, but you could halve or quarter to serve more moderate numbers. Be sure your tomatoes have some flavour, it's better to avoid supermarket ones, as even in France they're pretty poor. Make decent stock from chicken (or duck) carcases.

@@@@@ Now You're Cooking! Export Format

Cream Of Tomato Soup

british, soups, starters, vegetables

2750 gm ripe tomatoes
6  garlic cloves; chopped
1  celery stalk
275 gm chopped onions
300 gm chopped young carrots
2100 ml stock; (1)
1  bouquet garni
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
   freshly ground black pepper
700 ml stock; (2)
825 ml cream
1  chopped chives or basil

Simmer the vegetables and bouquet with the larger quantity of stock (1) until they are tender. Remove the bouquet garni and puree the soup in the blender or sieve until it is very smooth. Taste, add  seasoning and remaining stock. If it is to be served cold, stir in the cream and chill. If it is to be served hot, bring the cream to the boil in a clean pan and add the soup gradually. In both cases serve sprinkled with chives or better, chopped basil. If you like a spicy flavour, add nutmeg to the soup as it cooks and sprinkle a little on top when it is served.

Modifications for sterilising

Season lightly. Blend the soup, then sieve. Pour into 1ltr sterilising
jars, and seal and sterilise in the usual way. When reheating, season then bring add the cream to the boiling soup and serve without reheating.

Yield: 24 servings

[Teamedup]

Ah dear you have not understood. I DO NOT LIKE these other tomato soups. I have made them, I PREFER Heinz. I wouldn't thank you for a bowl of tomato soup that wasn't Heinz. If I am debased by this, well tant pis, I can live with that. 

 

 

 

 

[Miki]

Ian you really must come down from your extremely high and false position.

We are well aware of the E numbers and the out of dates on supermarket shelves, we are all grown ups who can decide what we want to eat.

Food and its tastes are in the mouth of the beholder, not in some rather stuck up attitude that each time says "only I know what is tasty, what is good and only I know how to make utopian dishes"

A billion cans of Heinz Cream of Tomato soup leave the supermarkets every week, barely a gallon of your soup leaves your kitchen, if that is what counts then you have just come second in the tom soup test ! but more seriously, leave people to judge what they do or do not like to eat. A couple or so on here, know that for a short while in my early married years (around 3 years) I worked on the UK's race courses for a well known wine company.

I gained a fair working knowledge of many wines, mainly the vineyards away from Bordeaux, I have to admit but, from a rather snooty angle, nothing too much missed by that ! but I would never dream to tell anyone what they should, or should not drink, no more than Tina would tell people what to or what not to eat, she describes her food in a very down to earth manner and her very good friend was "quite a good chef"

If you must quote Oliver then I must quote Ramsey and say that you are talking "B******s" Oliver has done excellent at his school dinners programme but funny enough, he does shout out rather loudly for...wait for it... a supermarket called Sainsbury's, quelle horreur !

Ramsay is a person who will call snooty chefs a bunch of stuck up t*****s and that is how Tina views people who corner her and start explaining how they make certain dishes. No good, let me taste it, we can all waffle on or pinch menus, we personally will want to taste it, even I am a great cook until I am called to cook.

Same thing with wine, all this tosh about this vineyard and that vineyard, this region and that region, I have been at so many tastings watching many people come completely unstuck in their interpretation of grapes, area, country, in other words the more simple first tests, that a chap I respected for his immense knowledge, told me that unless I wanted to devote my career to wine, then learn only what one liked (or preferred as he put it) and stick to a few areas and be an "expert" on that. We can all shout out about the great years and the great wines but very few will ever indulge in those and for the greater part they are an irrelevant part of the wine trade, for the huge majority of people.

Keep it simple, let people decide what they like to eat and drink and you can't go far wrong. Once you start telling people what they SHOULD like and how they should cook and what they must drink, the fun has gone and it all becomes rather boring.

[Iceni]

Ian

Your food is wonderful but for once, Miki is right.

The best wine/tom soup/cheddar is the wine/tom soup/cheddar you like. Just because I may not share your tastes in wine, women and song does not necessarily mean that I am wrong, just different.

BTW if/when Di is really, really ill the only food that she can face and keep down is Heinz orange tomato soup.

John

not

[Miki]

"....but for ONCE, Miki is right."

Sorry but I make that around double figures right now, take a look back through the threads

[Deimos]

I remember Jamie Oliver showing how to make “Fish Finger Sandwiches”. Wholesome (?) sliced white bread, mass produced fish fingers – on a TV cooking program.

[Lori]

Ian, perhaps you didn't mean it to sound so harsh, but it did come across that way.

[shas]

to properly enjoy your fishfinger sandwich, you must press on it with both hands, before you eat it, and preferably add tomato sauce before squashing.   yummm