La Cuisine Americaine

I was reminded today that the country I'm returning to in a week is, to the French, a foreign and even exotic land.

In the international section of the food hall of one of the big Parisian department stores is a shelf devoted to food of the United States and Canada:


If you look closely at the picture you can see what the French consider worth importing from North America: popcorn, pancake mix, peanut butter and roasted peanuts, barbecue sauce, cranberries, molasses and that harsh yellow stuff Americans call mustard. (The Canadian contribution, as far as I could tell, was limited to maple syrup.)

Truth be told, there is nothing on that shelf that I've missed in six months of living here.