As some of you may be aware Canada is bilingual. Both English and French are spoken here and by law certain accommodations are made for the minority French speakers. Some TV channels are in French for example. Imagine Pepe la Pew doing the voiceover on CSI, or reading the news. That's what these channels are like. This did get me to wondering if they ever translated the old Pepe la Pew cartoons into French. After a little research I discovered that they did. Interestingly enough in France, Pepe speaks French with a heavy Italian accent..

Anyway, most importantly, product packaging in Canada has to be in both English and French. Now we don't speak French but we have fun figuring out what they are trying to say. Interestingly it often doesn't seem to be the same thing as the English. Here are a few examples.

Craquelins Mijoteuse. Though I seem to remember a dictator of some South American country with this name, it is actually what they call Snack Crackers, like generic Ritz or Triscut.

Cocotte Mijoteuse is not an actress in an early Bond film, it is a Crockpot, a slow cooker. Apparently the French have a very close relationship to their Crockpots. I can see Pepe saying "Come here my little Cocotte Mijoteuse". As long as she doesn't know French he would be OK.

How about a nice bowl of Noisettes. MMM that sounds good doesn't it? If nothing else I'd guess that it would be loud, but it is in fact food. You could have some Dry Roasted Noisettes with a Noisette Mocha to wash it down. In reality Noisettes are Hazelnuts.

With cheddar cheese we're dealing with two levels of translation. In Canada, cheddar comes in three grades; Mild, Medium, and Old. I have to say I appreciate the honesty, Sharp Cheddar is in fact old cheese. It is a little strange though to dig through the bin looking for Old food. They even have an Extra Old version should you want. When we look at the French side of the package they replace Old with Fort. Fort? Should we go on spring break to Old Lauderdale Florida? Come to think of it, it is Florida, maybe Old Lauderdale would be more appropriate? Anyway what is even weirder is that they have Fort and Extra Fort. Don't the French have a word for Extra?

"Honey I found a bag of Arachines in the cabinet." That would be enough to send me screaming to the phone to call Orkin. "Please help us, our house has heaps of Arachines. Arghh..." Well Arachines are  not eight legged venomous creatures, they are Peanuts so it's OK. So far though, I just haven't been able to get used to eating Dry Roasted Arachines.

Things get very strange in the freezer section. Want some Heavenly Hash Ice Cream? If the French side of the label is facing out you have to look for Delice Royal. They have a very high opinion of this flavor. It gets even stranger when there is not a French word for something. One of our favorite ice creams is Chocolate Fudge Crackle, . In French this is Aux Torsades de Fudge au Chocolate. Now that just trips off of the tongue doesn't it? Best of all though, is Smores. You know Smores, chocolate, marshmallow and graham cracker mushed together. Well up here Smores Ice Cream is called Guim o Choco. If there was a name that screams NOT FOOD then Guim o Choco would have to be close.

Microwave Popcorn? Try Mais a eclater au Micro-Ondes.
Large Eggs? Oeufs Cabre : Gros
Cream of Wheat? Ble' . Which is how Marsha has described it for years.

My favorite though is products that are made in Canada. Somewhere on the label these products will say Canada. On the French side they put the translation which is Canada. It's the same word but they still feel the need to put a second copy on the package.

It is an interesting country we live in.

Go GOPHERS!  We saw they made it into the NCAAs.

D&M

Three pictures of le lune

Two shots of the moon .
Momiji decided to climb into the small uncomfortable space in our TV cabinet for some reason.


IMG_0377.JPG



IMG_0415.JPG



IMG_0402.JPG