Saturday, January 18, 2014

A Few Things Which Perplexed Me in the Netherlands

For those of you wanting French-related posts, don't worry. This will probably be the last Netherlands-themed post that I will do in a while, at least until I get the opportunity to visit the country again.

The first thing that struck me as odd during my visit in the Netherlands was the commercial for a French cheese brand called Le Paturain. In the hotel, I tried to get a feel for the language simply by watching Dutch television. Then after a few minutes of staring at the screen and not understanding a word, I would cave in and start to watch English-language shows displaying Dutch subtitles.

Very often during the commercial breaks, I saw the recurring ad for Le Paturain cheese, an ad which demonstrates, amid the sounds of chirping crickets (rather than cicadas), a Provençale family excitedly noticing that the Dutch vacationers were arriving in their caravan.

"Les Hollandais, ils arriv-EUH!" exclaims the young man. The sleepy village awakens and the French set the table in a flurry.

"Où est le Paturaing?" asks the patronly Southerner with his marked nasal dialect, unable to find and present his guests with the missing cheese. The young man, for good measure, clutches at his shirt and pockets to see if he *somehow* misplaced the tub of cheese upon his slender person rather than leaving it behind on the tractor sitting in the lavender field. It is then that Maman produces the absent cheese just before the "apéro." The visiting Dutchman holds a glass of wine, wishes everyone "Chanté!" (santé = cheers/health; chanté= sang) and in camaraderie, with an almost fatherly gesture, claps the young man on the back.




The commercial itself isn't odd. In fact, it is pretty standard as far as advertisements are concerned. What is bizarre is the fact that this cheese, while actually being French, is one that I, despite having lived in France for four years, have never seen in France.

Nope. Not once.

Never in Paris. Never in Dijon, nor Burgundy. Never in the Loire Valley.

Heck, not even in the South of France...where the commercial was supposed to be taking place!

Mais où est le Paturaing? Not in France, apparently...

Once I returned home, I made sure to check in my local supermarket to see if I had overlooked Paturain cheese in the aisle. I still had yet to spot it, but it was to no avail.

The nagging feeling that I was missing something kept bothering me. I did some Internet research.

I got an answer and soon discovered why Paturain cheese was seemingly non-existent in France: the brand is marketed and sold as "Tartare" over here. And fromage Tartare seems to come across as a second-rate Boursin here in Franceland.

I know it's supposed to be used as an apéritif cheese, but shame on you, Provençale family. How dare you welcome guests who have bothered to drive, DRIVE, from far away only to present them with some run-of-the-mill cheese when France has much, much cheeses better than that.


The second thing which perplexed me was an encounter that I had with a drug dealer.

I was walking down a busy street at night when a hoodie-wearing entrepreneur with a furtive gaze asked if I was interested in buying some of his illicit merchandise.

I shook my head and said "no, thank you."

To my surprise, the man said:





To which I replied:

To which he insisted:

To which I reiterated:


I didn't know what was going on. Either this particular drug dealer was a fan of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" or I failed to realize that grotesquely tall, stubborn six-year-olds were getting in the business of selling narcotics.

He retorted once more:

Then I finalized the exchange with a last



I hope that will be the last time I'll ever have to deal with a drug dealer. 


The third and last thing that astonished me in the Netherlands, more than having mistaken vla for milk, finding ticket vending machines that would accept neither cash nor credit cards, or seeing a four-poster bed floating in a canal, or even controlling a friend who was as high as a kite, was a New Year's Eve special that I saw on television.

For some reason, as I surfed through the various channels, my attention came to a program which displayed prawns (or shrimp as we 'Muricans call 'em). Given the context of the show, I expected that the prawns would be part of a cooking show which would then explain a delicious recipe to people who would probably never take the time and effort to make it in the first place.

Except these prawns were wearing costumes, and they were being controlled like marionettes through the aid of transparent strings. Utterly transfixed, I kept gazing at the indecipherable Dutch language sketch of prawns with high pitched voices. Just when I thought the show couldn't get any more bizarre, music came on and the puppet prawns began to dance in time to the music, their little claws, legs, antennae and dark eyes disturbingly wobbling to and fro.

Then, just when I thought things possibly couldn't get any more bizarre, the close-up shot of the dancing prawns suddenly panned out to reveal an entire Dutch audience watching and enjoying the music to which the prawns had been moving in time. The smiling Dutch hosts addressed their audience and home viewers. An artist came on the stage. The audience cheered. The music continued. The prawns kept dancing.

And I was dumbfounded.

To any Dutch readers who may come across this post: can you PLEASE explain to me just what on Earth did I watch on New Year's Eve??? Is Dancing High Pitched Voiced Prawns a regular feature on your shows?

Because if it is, then I'm moving to the Netherlands. Dancing Puppet Prawns is high quality entertainment, in my opinion.

Barb the French Bean

MAJOR SUPER IMPORTANT EUREKA UPDATE

Not only did I find out what the T.V. special was, a New Year's Eve Concert, I also discovered the masterminds behind the dancing prawns!

Apparently, they are the product of a comedy theatre group called Hotel Modern, a group which specializes, among other things, in collaborating with prawn sketches set to music!

While I can't show the actual program that I saw, I can provide you with this short documentary on how Hotel Modern makes their prawn sketches, called "Shrimp Tales". Enjoy.


31 comments:

  1. I don't have any real clue why there would be dancing prawns on TV. Was it some kind of talent show? That's the only thing I could actually think of.

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    1. It was apparently sketches by a theatre troupe! :D

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  2. If you can hold an audience captive with dancing prawns on strings, they should certainly be happy with 2nd rate French cheese? :)

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    1. It must be so...still, the Dutch deserve better French cheese. --.--

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  3. Funny how products will be different in other places. Fortune cookies were invented in America, so they're not found in restaurants in China. A lot of brands we have in our stores here are claimed to be the best by whatever store has it, but in reality most of them are made by one company just with a different label.

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    1. Or indeed how certain products are marketed abroad. Another example of French food gone wrong are the "Petit Ecolier" chocolate-covered cookies/biscuits by LU. In the United States, they are re-packaged and sold as an overpriced, upper class, refined biscuit.

      Here, in France, they are sold as a snack for children. :P

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  4. Just read your post to my Dutch partner, and he's as dumbfounded with the dancing prawns (garnalen, I hear) as you were. The mystery remains :D Oh, and I've mistaken vla for milk (or yoghurt, or heavy cream) several times. The Dutch, you know... It's a funny country :D

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    1. Heh. Well, be sure to tell your fellow Dutchie that I found the answer to the mystery, and it was thanks to you! I typed in "garnalen nieuwjaarsconcert" and eventually found a result!

      (And it was nice to see that I wasn't the only one dumbfounded by the prawns...)

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    2. Hilarious :D I'm so glad you found the answer, though. It haunted me since yesterday. I just told Cor (Mr. Dutchie), and he had a good laugh. No, he's never heard of Hotel Modern. His response, and I quote: "You have to do something to get subsidized in Holland." There you have it.

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  5. I was recently talking to someone in Wisconsin who had never heard of cheese balls. Every cheese ball I've ever seen was from Wisconsin. That's weird, right?

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    1. Yup. 'Tis weird indeed.

      Or perhaps the cheese balls in question are a regional specialty and are not recognized state-wide?

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  6. Sure, you posted a video of the commercial, but no dancing prawns? Now THAT'S a Youtube video I want to see. And I don't even know why I want to see it. I just... do.

    Either this particular drug dealer was a fan of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" or I failed to realize that grotesquely tall, stubborn six-year-olds were getting in the business of selling narcotics.

    That made me laugh out loud.

    Once upon a time, when Brandon was still living in Chicago, I visited him for a week and while walking down the street I got hassled by a drug dealer who kept insisting I buy his drugs, even when I would say no. Much like your exchange above. But then when he knew I wasn't buying he said, I kid you not, "So you want to rap battle? Let's have a rap battle." And that pushy conversation ensued.

    As fun as that sounded, I didn't want to be stabbed for winning, so I declined.

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    1. You totally could have won that rap battle, but took the higher ground of avoiding getting shanked. :P

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  7. Well. I can certainly understand you finding those things unusual. Thanks for the laughs! x

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  8. Dancing prawns. That's something you don't see every day. Sometimes, out of the blue, someone will ask Favorite Young Man, You got any herb? He says, No. He's not into drugs. Maybe they ask because he has so many tats. Do tats suggest "I am a drug dealer"?

    Love,
    Janie Junebug

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    1. The tattoos would certainly suggest so. Still, you can't judge a book by it's cover.

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  9. Thank's for making me laugh , it is fun to read :)

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  10. I'd love to visit The Netherlands. My first visit to France was amusing as far as cheese was concerned. I wanted slices of cheese...maybe crackers, grapes, and a little wine. You know, the American portrayal of French appetizers. I asked for fromage in three different restaurants over our stay...each time getting a big bowl of cream cheese (I think, I didn't eat it). I still have no idea how to ask...if you can enlighten me, my next trip to France will be much nicer in the food department. :)

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    1. I have to admit that even I'm a bit confused about the "cream cheese." I suspect that the cheese in question may have been "fromage blanc," which tends to be a bit liquid and resembles sour cream, though certainly not in flavor.

      (Although fromage blanc would not typically be served in French restaurants as part of the cheese platter...)

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  11. So many things are invented in one place and named after another. Like Canadian Bacon, made up by americans.

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    1. And it's still not as nice as British, Irish or French bacon. :P

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  12. I'd highly enjoy dancing puppet prawns too, especially after interacting with a French drug dealer.

    PS Great to meet you. Looking forward to more visits.

    xoRobyn

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    1. Heh, I don't think the dealer himself was French. Or Dutch, for that matter. :P

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  13. dancing prawns oh you silly dutch people!! I am moving there now, screw you Ireland. It sounds logical to me that the French keep their best cheese and export the second class cheese...sure we outsiders wouldn't know the difference. Once I was in Paris and my friends family had this cheese that came in a barrel...it was delicious!

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    1. Oh, come now. Ireland is pretty awesome in its own way...

      And regarding the cheeses, that's only the tip of the iceberg: France has well over 400 different varieties, not including "artisanal" or small production farm cheeses.

      Jeez. It's a small wonder why I never manage to lose weight over here. :P

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  14. I think there are tons of unique cultural things that we all take for granted that actually make no sense at all. I think we just tend to notice them more when we're somewhere else because, you know, it's different culture.

    Anytime I hear about anything like this, my mind immediately goes back to the episode of the Simpsons when visiting the U.S. embassy in Australia, there was a giant machine attached to each of the toilets to ensure that the water would flush in the correct, 'American' way.

    That's not really pertinent here, but it is what came to my mind, and I'm a pretty stream-of-consciousness type of commenter.

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    1. No worries. I can relate to having segue thoughts as well, such as being reminded of the horrid "toilettes turques" that I first encountered back in 2008. *shudders*

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  15. Ok. That prawn thing is just weird. And I say that as someone who has been living here for almost 14 years. I'm still confused by the Dutch at times.

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    1. Thanks for reassuring me about finding the prawn thing as odd.

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Apparently, leaving comments on this blog is a hit-or-miss game of Russian roulette: you are either lucky and can comment away, or you are required to log in when the settings are CLEARLY set to allow trouble-free commenting (sorry 'bout that, folks). If anything, the Facebook page is always a viable option. :) -Barb