Olympic Detachment - French Cuisine

Personally, the Dodger is disappointed that London got the Olympics over Paris. The important point here is that food is an amenity which contributes to the experience. Who knows what the food was like in Athens? Actually, the price of wine in a restaurant is at least as important as the quality of the food. Probably the best restaurants in London are French restaurants.

Thank the Olympic committee for not visiting the Olympics on New York City.

The point here is that Chirac was not simply insulting the Brits for the fun of it, he was making an important point about the location of the games.

Although BrooklynDodger has not experienced Finnish cuisine, the Dodger has been told Finns go to Leningrad for cheap vodka, suggesting that restaurant liquor prices are too high a well as the food too baltic. Swedish food might be competitive with Finland for a place you wouldn't go for the food.

At least Britain is full of Indian restaurants and other imports from the empire.

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Chirac in Food Fight Over British Cuisine

By ROBERT BARR
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 5, 2005; 8:45 AM

LONDON -- French President Jacques Chirac's low opinion of British cuisine, which he reportedly dubbed the worst in Europe after Finland, has started a food fight with London and sparked the wrath of Britain's press.
London's newspapers, which regularly take offense at the French, lashed out at Chirac's jokes on the nation's cuisine, with the Guardian's food critic writing Tuesday that "a man full of bile is not fit to pronounce on food."

Mobbed by security guards and media, French President Jacques Chirac arrives at the Raffles City convention hall in Singapore Tuesday, July 5, 2005l. Chirac flew in to back the Paris 2012 bid for the right to host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games at the IOC session.

The French newspaper Liberation reported Monday that Chirac had made the insulting remarks about food in London during a conversation with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday.

"We can't trust people who have such bad food," Chirac was quoted as saying. He reportedly added that only Finland had worse food in Europe, and that mad cow disease was Britain's sole contribution to European agriculture.

Blair, who was in Singapore pressing London's bid for the 2012 Olympics, did not comment directly. But when asked Monday whether the G-8 summit starting Wednesday would be an anticlimax after the Olympic decision, he said:

"I won't say the G-8 summit would be an anticlimax to it because that would be undiplomatic and I know when I go there I will be in the presence of very diplomatic people," he said.
Schroeder said Tuesday he expected to get "a decent steak" at the summit, but otherwise steered away from comment.

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