And, as the local TV station keeps informing us, they also love French bread, which they sell in long, baguette style loaves almost everywhere that you can buy bread. They use it for po-boys - the unhealthily massive sandwiches which they stuff with more fillings than one person should eat in a sitting - and serve it with their delicious gumbo. However, the use of the term 'French' to describe their bread is a complete misnomer - it simply isn't French bread, I've been to France. I've wanted to move there just to eat bread and cheese for the rest of my (admittedly probably cut short by cholesterol poisoning) life. We've come home with loaves and loaves of French bread in the hope of defrosting it to its former glory to recreate the deliciousness of the experience. What they call 'French' bread here is just bread - sometimes it's ok, sometimes it's pretty bad, but it's never crusty, never has any of the fantastic soft inside and almost mouth hurtingly crusty outside. It's just bread, and given that you can't even export French flour because the French are so proud of their bread, I think they are stretching their definition of 'French' to describe their floppy, quick drying attempts at French bread. None of their bread is crusty - since we've been here we have searched every supermarket and food establishment we have entered for bread that has anything remotely resembling a crust, and it simply doesn't exist.
I love the food here - I have been more adventurous with my choices than ever before, which even extends to eating an oyster the other day (although it was fried and barely distinguishable from any other fried food in that sense), but their stretching of the definition of French bread is something with which I simply cannot get to grips.
