Saturday, June 02, 2007

differences, more differences, and yet more

What's the difference between a glove and a foxglove? Unlike a glove, a foxglove is more beautifully patterned on the inside than on the outside.

There had clearly been a difference of opinion this morning, as I inferred from the angry voice of a girl passing on the pavement on the other side of our hedge, complaining to a companion. ". all morning...he slammed the door in my face. He's been rude all morning. I bit my tongue, all morning." A snatch of soap opera.

In Emil Zola's novel L'Assomoir, differences in culinary styles between the north of France and the south are noted. Lantier, the character, to whom this refers, comes from Provence. "He made himself omelettes, omelettes cooked on both sides, crisped like pancakes. So solid that they might have been biscuits.... But his gala dinner was a soup made with vermicelli, very thick, into which he poured half a bottle of oil... Only he ate it, with Gervaise, because the others, the Parisians, once having risked a taste, had almost lost their guts and entrails."

1 comment:

Lucy said...

Pernickety Parisians! I suppose the taste for olive oil was a southern thing, Parisians would have favoured butter. I wonder how large a bottle of olive oil it was?
The omelette sounds more like a frittata/spanish omelette type of thing, doesn't it.