Take one unpopular president, a brace of struggling statesmen and a couple of global summits. Heat up a hoary national stereotype, leaven with wit, sit back and watch ”les rosbifs” simmer.
Jacques Chirac stirred the pot at a meeting in Russia on Sunday when he joked to Vladimir Putin and Gerhard Schröder that the British could not be trusted and worse food was only found in Finland.
The French president declared that the only thing the British have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow disease, the French daily Libération reported.
Chirac then reportedly said: ”You can’t trust people who cook as badly as that. After Finland, it’s the country with the worst food.”
His jibes may have amused Putin and Schröder, but they are unlikely to have pleased members of the Paris 2012 bid team lobbying the International Olympic Committee in Singapore. Chirac’s absence while Tony Blair has been working on London’s behalf has been noted, but Paris officials have excused it by insisting that the president would arrive in time for the final presentation on Wednesday, which Blair will miss.
As a Michelin-starred Scottish chef put the final touches to his French-inspired menu for the Group of Eight (G8) leaders at Gleneagles, Chirac recalled how the former Nato secretary general George Robertson, a Scot, once insisted he try a Scottish speciality, believed to be haggis.
”That’s where our problems with Nato come from,” he said.
The chef advising on the menu, Andrew Fairlie, who trained under Michel Guérard in France, describes his cooking as ”unashamedly French but with a Scottish twist”.
French aides said the quotes attributed to Chirac did not ”reflect the tone or the content” of the meeting in Russia. But Blair made what appeared to be a reference to Chirac’s outburst when asked if Gleneagles would be an anticlimax after Singapore.
”I won’t say the G8 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.
British chefs were less restrained.
”Bollocks,” said Antony Worrall Thompson. ”Chirac doesn’t get out enough.
”Our beef is the best in the world … All the langoustines they eat are Scottish. So I’d serve him langoustines followed by good Aberdeen Angus beef and then give him a heart attack with some sticky toffee pudding.”
Egon Ronay, the food critic, said: ”A man full of bile is not fit to pronounce on food.” – Guardian Unlimited Â