This is eggzactly what I was hoping for on a dreary Friday
afternoon with no prospects of the day improving and no billable hours on my
schedule – a farmers’ revolt in France that has resulted in the smashing of
100,000 eggs. I’m not eggsagerating.
The French farmers are angry about the prices they get for eggs. They consider it practically a yolk that the market shells out a mere 94 cents a kilogram (roughly 2 lbs.)
for eggs. Their incomes are getting fried. So they’ve begun smashing their eggs in the streets. As Adam Taylor, a writer for Business Insider put it, they are "scrambling to drive up prices."
To paraphrase the late Nikita Khrushchev (sort of), “In order to raise egg prices, it is first necessary to step in some omelets.” Or something like that.
To paraphrase the late Nikita Khrushchev (sort of), “In order to raise egg prices, it is first necessary to step in some omelets.” Or something like that.
Consequently, crossing the road in the town of Ploumagoar
(I’m not making this up, that’s the name) is like walking on eggs. Eggsactly
like walking on eggs, as a matter of fact. The cobbletones of Brittany are running yellow with bad yolks.
And if you expect local officials to be eggstremely
outraged, you’re cracked. If America had a Boston Tea Party, the French are
having a Brittany Egg Party. Helene Guillemot, adjunct for the mayor of
Carbaix, another town in Brittany where broken eggs are flowing like blood over
the cobbles of Paris in 1789, seemed to be egging the farmers on.
“We’re in solidarity with the protest because there’s a true
crisis at this moment.” said the mayor’s adjunct, in an eleggant statement on
behalf of the farmers. She called the protest “symbolic” and “tres pacifist.”
(I wish she had used a pun-able English synonym for “tres,” like “eggstremely,” but
she didn’t.)
Okay, you get the idea and I’m gonna run out of here before my puns get
any more puny. Got a wad of money in your pocket and nothing much to do?
Hop an airplane France and head straight to Brittany. Be sure to pack your
spatula and your omelet pan.
3 comments:
After Ploumagoar, Carhaix, Morlaix (100 000 eggs a day), Saint-Brieuc yesterday (140 000 eggs; 5 000 were given to the "Restos du coeur"), and the show goes on ! So, they throw away 5% only of their production !
But in France, farmers may do what they want, break or spoil, they aren't guilty. Never.
100 000 laying hens, or huge pig farms, are factories, and know industrial problems.
Luckily, we can see now, in our little markets, some wise young producers who come back to traditional breeding. They have small farms, not factories. Only little herds where there know each cow. As an exemple, they make butter like their grandparents did: what a butter! We are so happy to find again the true scent of real butter, with a rich colour which depends on what the cows ate in the fields by these days, so goooood !
We enjoy... till Brussels forbids that, probably.
I happen to know Andre. He is a retired cardiologist living in Brittany. When a cardiologist sings the praises of butter – well, a particular butter – you can bet it's great butter.
One of my greatest delights, each time I visit France, is to go to a sidewalk cafe each day for breakfast which consists of coffee and a tartine - a thin, sideways slice of crusty bread, well buttered. I thought during my last visit to Paris, that the butter didn't taste quite the way it used to. Then I figured, Nah, I'm getting crankier and crazier than ever.
But maybe I wasn't so nuts after all. Merci, Andre!
Crankily yours,
The New York Crank
Hello Crank !
It's more and more difficult to get another choice that industrial butters, like you've tasted...
Another time you're in France, I'll be very happy to share with you a really great butter ! ;-))
Amitiés, Crank !
Post a Comment