Khrys weblog

Bon appetit ! (see article in English below the French translation ; voir l’article en Francais sous les images)

Bon, en Francais maintenant.
J’ai passe le weekend de Paques chez la famille de ma copine. Et comme partout, le dimanche, c’est les oeufs en chocolat a chercher dans toute la maison (pas encore dans le jardin, il y a de la neige, et la derniere fois, il a fallu attendre la fonte pour trouver les derniers). Mais la Finlande reserve toujours des surprises au visiteur, et cette fois-ci, il s’agit d’une tradition culinaire appelee Mämmi. Mämmi, c’est pas la grand-mere qui sort du placard (ouf), c’est un gateau qui ressemble un peu a de la mousse au chocolat.
Jusque la, tout va bien, et vous vous precipitez vers la table, la langue dehors et la salive qui pend (oh pardon, c’est peut etre pas tres correct pour un invite) , et vous demandez autour de quoi il s’agit … Mais quand il y en a un qui vous sort : “au chocolat ? oh le pauvre ! non, il n’y a pas de chocolat la dedans”, l’autre qui repond “de quoi c’est fait ? heu, du seigle, des trucs qui n’ont pas de traduction, et des trucs que meme traduits, vous n’etes pas plus avances”. Mais ils s’accordent pour vous expliquer que ca prends des semaines a faire, lorsque c’est fait maison (heureusement, pas cette fois-ci). Vous rigolez ? vous le laisser plusieurs semaines hors du frigo ???
Il faut un minimum d’audace apres ca, pour gouter au Mämmi, en particulier lorsque tous ces gentils Finlandais se moque du pauvre etranger. Et lorsque vous vous decidez, prenez le taureau par les cornes et un peu de cette mousse dans votre assiette avec votre troisieme main (deja deux sur les cornes) puis ajoutez de la creme liquide par dessus, comme le veut la tradition, il y en a toujours un qui sort brusquement : “Peut etre on devrait prendre une photo avant qu’il soit trop tard …”
Finalement, j’ai survecu. C’etait pas vraiment bon. Mais pas horrible non plus. Special, oui, c’est le moins qu’on puisse dire. Mais ce n’etait pas le pire chapitre de la cuisine Finlandaise, et pour etre franc, meme pas le pire de la journee (il y avait aussi un melange etrange de poisson blanc avec de la farine et d’autres trucs sans nom, ressemblant a une puree grise, et ca, j’ai pas pu en manger des masses si vous voyez ce que je veux dire) …
Alors a tous ceux qui visiteront la Finlande un jour, aux alentours des fetes de Paques, n’ecoutez pas toutes les vilaines mises en garde, et essayez ! Mais n’en attendez pas un morceau d’art …
Oh et encore une chose : la cuisine ici n’est pas si mauvaise qu’on le dit ou laisse entendre. Il y a aussi plein de bon trucs, sisi !

I survived !
For Easter, we went to my girlfriend family. And traditionnaly, on top of the usual chocolate eggs, they have a special thing called Mämmi. Mämmi, it’s not a family member, it’s a kind of black creamy cake, looking like a chocolate mousse. So far, so good. You hurry to the table, and ask about it, already with your stomach jumping with joy. But when the first person tells you with a big smile : “Oh, so cute, but you know, there is no chocolate in there” and the second tries to answer you : “about what it’s made of ? I have no clue, some rye I think, there are also things I can’t translate, and stuff that nobody ever heard of”. And by the way, it took weeks to be ready. No way ? they left it out for weeks ???
I’m telling you, it needs some guts to try some Mämmi, especially when all those Finns are laughing about you, poor foreigner ! And when you take the step, putting some of this bizarre mousse kind of thing in your plate, and adding some cream, according to the tradition, there is another one mocking you : “Perhaps we should take a picture, before it’s too late” …
But finally, I survived. It was not particularly good. But it was not horrible. Just a bit special I’d say. It was definitly not the worst thing in Finnish cuisine, and it was not even the thing I liked the least that day (there was also a sort of white fish mixed with flour and things with no name, looking like a grey mashed potatoe, and it tasted quite bad to be honest).
So, to all people who might have to try Mämmi one day, don’t listen to all those drama stories about it, just try some. But don’t expect it to be a wonderful surprise though.
Oh, and one last thing : Finnish cuisine isn’t that bad. I also eat plenty good things here !

T-shirt George W. Bush
Traduction : “Je parie que tu voteras la prochaine fois, hippie !”

… or how to show the whole world how much an analphabete one can be. I was watching TV news on a Finnish channel last time, and they were showing french students in the streets of Paris with banners. And it’s a good thing you guys don’t understand French, for you would have been quite impressed with primary school level mistakes on some of them. And they are supposed to be over 16 years old at least, maybe preparing a diploma or a degree or something. They should be able to write such things without thinking. Well, they sure were not thinking. Don’t they realise that there are other French speaking people around the world (Canadians, Africans, etc.) who are probaly wondering now if those kids shouldn’t just go back to school instead of rioting ?
And it’s no surprise either when the journalist asked some of them why they were there, half of them didn’t know or were not sure.
Back to the spelling mistake issue. I know French language isn’t easy to spell properly (especially for foreigners). And everybody having French as a mother tongue will comfirm “we all make mistakes”. But having one here, one there, is fine. having one in every word is something else. I sometimes (ok, often) play with internet games, where some players give a short description about their alliance, or kingdom, or whatever. And there you realise again that something has to be wrong in schools nowadays. It simply is unbelievable. I’ll try to express an equivalent of a message here :
“we are a very pawerful alianse
we welkome evereebodee.”

PS: I hope I don’t make too much mistakes in English myself …