What if it’s just simply that Finnish food does suck compared to foreign specialities & such?

Maybe it does, but are PMs supposed to be taking crackshots at other countries like this? I mean, Italian and French women may have more back hair than Finnish women…but should the head of our country be pointing that out?

H?¶p?¶ h?¶p?¶ Mikko. Plenty of foreigners, including Italians and Frenchmen, adore Finnish food. Lived in Italy myself for 2 ?½ years and my colleagues never could get enough of anything salmon related I offered them, and stuff like rye bread, rosolli, mushroom salad and sourcream sauces also went down extremely well. My sister lives in France, and all her friends and in-laws there love her heavily Finnish-influenced cooking. Et cetera, et cetera.

Finnish food can of course be dull, but so can any other. E.g. only Italians can possibly eat pasta 365 days a year like they do, and their cafeteria meals are no more interesting than ours.

and their cafeteria meals are no more interesting than ours.

Ever eaten at a Sodexo cafeteria??

Ever eaten at a Sodexo cafeteria??

Oh, yes. And Amica. And worse.

And a variety of Italian cafeterias at educational institutions. The food is cheap, can be eaten and provides energy, but given a decent choice one would rather have something else for lunch.

Personally I find the whole thing hilarious.
What I can’t decide on is what’s more fun: Berlusconi and Chirac making assses of themselves or the (tiny) group of Finns who are so eager to agree with them and thus enhance their own sense of “europeanism”.

Either which way, I’m having a laugh.

Of course tabloids want to make the most out if this. Ilta-Sanomat asked readers to choose the dumber of the two. I think that Berlusconi won by a large margin, because Chirac is just pathetic, whereas Berlusconi is an asshole. Chirac’s political career is ending soon – loosing the Olympics to London might have been the final blow. But Berlusconi probably comes up with a law that extends his rule infinitely. The Spaghetti Man is evil, whereas the Baguette Man is just a loser.

Oh, and The Times in UK wrote very favorably about Finnish food, but then again, they’re in the same boat with us.

Obviously Mr. Chirac and Mr. Berlusconi did not eat their boogers when they were children. I was told to eat my plate empty and not complain about the food. What amazes me, is that while visiting in Finland, they were served with all kinds delicacies and they are already complaining about the food. They haven’t even seen the m?¤mmi, r?¶ssypottu, jankki and k?¤nkky yet.

Or maybe that is the problem. They were expecting some good hernekeitto and got some artistically arranged fancy stuff that leaves you hungry.

Yes, and I do not understand what they go on with Italian or Frnch bread? Its inedible. You have to run to the store 5 minuted befor eeating, or otherwise your teeth drop off as it hardens into a brick.

Hank W, The reason is that French bread goes hard/stale after a few hours is because it has no fat, thus it goes very quickly.

Nice photof*uck, Phil!

Iltalehti, Pete, not Ilta-Sanomat.

“Ever eaten at a Sodexo cafeteria??”

Sodexho is a French company.

There is a huge difference between Berlusconi and Chirac; the Italian PM says stuff like this intentionally to make headlines. Chirac’s gaffe was not intended to the journalists at all, he was simply trying to crack a bad joke.

Berlusconi was bragging about his achievement and about himself, thus talking without brains again. Chirac’s jokes (insults) were deliberete, EU politics. Chirac is at war with Blair about EU farm substitute politics, and PM Matti Vanhanen at his visit to France made a statemnt favoring more of the Brittish position than the French one.

The Finnish IOC members, Kurri and Tallberg, made a statement that food organizing in Paris Olympic bid did not convince them. 52-52 swinged to 50-54 in favour of London. Greetings to Chirac.

I love the banner on this blog! It’s written by “two hot-blooded women, one American and one French, both living in a socialist paradise called France”.

It’s obvious that they have quite a lot of opinions about frogland. I’ve bookmarked them, as they’re bound to have a lot of interesting views.

If France is a socialist paradise, why are Chirac and de Villepin in charge of government? The Chirac supporters that I know were very unhappy about cohabiting with the socialists when Jospin was PM.

French socialism is so entrenched by now that right-wing political leaders have no choice but to kowtow to a rhetoric that has passed muster with academic and media elites. This is a phenomenon not dissimilar to what is happening in Finland.

Chirac and de Villepin are mostly opportunists. They will sing and dance the tune called by the media, but the price French society pays as a whole is in fostering a culture of insincerity, and cynicism.

There is a downside to forcing a politically-correct ethos on a people, as socialists tend to do. Such conduct should be fostered by a people by themselves – not handed down by media and academia elites. Of course, the people – individually – can often be very weak in forming notions of ethical conduct, – with the exception of one area of human endeavor: conducting and running businesses. There, the rules of conduct tend to have a structure that can be useful in other spheres of human experience.

Of course, socialists will never see that, though, as they cling to antiquated notions about the role of commerce in human experience.

This story has now been picked up in America:

http://independentsources.com/2005/07/15/weekend-edition-still-no-takers-in-defending-finnish-food

Still No Takers In Defending Finnish Food

Finnpundit, you’re saying the French right are compeletly toothless because having a majority in the parliament and the presidency at the same time just won’t do. Apparently they must be under a pretty serious voodoo spell of the “socialist” media. I’m waiting with great interest what you are going to say about the German center-right majority due to take power soon. On your scale the CDU are probably “communist democrats” and the CSU “christian socialists” or something.

There is very little of what used to be the right wing in French, German, or Old European politics in general. I wouldn’t call the CDU or CSU any of your suggested epithets: what they pretty much are not, however, is pro-business.

I can just hear the protestations formulating. But welfare-statist Europe has brow-beaten the business community to such a degree that stating that one is pro-business is political suicide. All of it has to be couched in the language of statist dirigisme, – which, in the end, is already an abandonment of pro-business political values.

The CDU will run to the center as soon as its in office. Pretty much nothing of substance will get done, given the stranglehold of unions on free-market interests. Coupled with the rising leftist militancy of the Ossies, there is very little room for maneuver, indeed.