FRENCH Culture Help

[Tinn Tam]

Wow, nice link. And a much better solution.

*off to look for the same kind of thing for Great Britain*

[Gorgeous_Ginny]

Thankyou very much for your help! It is much appreciated.

[nikkiolapotter]

I'm currently writing a T/V fic, and I was wondering what are some things that Victoire could say in french when she gets frustrated. Like, how in English we would say fiddlesticks or something less pathetic (and more a little more vulgar) of that sort.

[Striped_Candycane]

Some very mild (and perhaps slightly lame ) options are "zut" (a bit old fashioned) or "mince", which both mean dang/shoot. I suppose it would be helpful if you could give us the context, because these are words that are used more in an “oops! I've dropped something” content than actual frustration...(I'm not actually French, though, I've just been submerged in an all-French environment for three years, so someone might want to correct me on this. I just thought I'd reply since no-one else had yet.)

I am supposing, however, that you want actual swear words. I'll PM them to you, since I don't know how deeply we can explore swearwords on here.

~Veronica

[Lyratearsx]

Hi, I wondered if anyone knew any popular french desserts? They can be in their french names or translated, I don't mind.

Thanks!

~Lyra

[luinrina]

The most known and probably most common one is Mousse au Chocolat. But you could easily go with ice cream (glace), crêpes or different types of tortes/cakes (tartes, gateaux or gateaux à la crème in French):

Tarte aux pommes - cake with apples
Tarte aux cerises - cake with cherries
Tarte aux framboises - cake with raspberries

These three are the most common ones.

A speciality is the Quiche. I've found a description of it on wikipedia which might be helpful.

And I've found these desserts:

Ananas frais au kirsch ou au marasquin
Fresh pineapple with kirsch or maraschino

Baba
Pastry of yeast, with syrup of rum

Bananes flambees
Bananas baked in butter, sugared and flambéed in rum

Bavaroise
Iced creme of milk, sugar, egg yolk, gelatin, whipped cream and different ingredients for taste like vanilla, coffee, chocolate, fruit purée, caramel or liqueur

Beignets de Mam-Goz
You make a dough out of pommes, milk, butter, flour, sugar, lemon or orange paring. Out of this you cut round or rhombic biscuits which are fried in hot shortening and served warm, with sugar on top.

Beignds de pommes
Apple discs, turned in dough, fried in shortening, served warm with sugar on top

Brioche
Cake of yeast

Bilche du reveillon - Bilche de Noel
Christmas torte, biscuit cake with chocolate or mocha cream

Charlotte russe
Spoon-sized biscuits tinctured in liqueur, with ice cream

Clafoutis
Fruit cake; plum, apples or cherries

Compotes
Several types of stewed fruits

Corbeille de fruits
Basket with fresh fruits

Cornets de Murat - Cornets à la creme
Puff pastry bags, filled with cream

Coupe glacée
Sundae with fruit and cream

Crème caramel
Caramel cream

Crème champenoise
Cream of white wine, eggs, sugar and lemon oil

Crème Sabayon
Cream of white wine, egg yolk and sugar

Crème vanille
Vanilla pudding

Crèpes Mireille - Crepes au caramel
Thin pancakes with caramel syrup

Eclair

Feuilletes aux fruits frais
Tartlet of puff pastry, filled with fresh fruits

Flamri à la purée de cassis
Semolina pudding with a purée of black currant on top

Flan de poires tourangeau
Puff pastry with pears cooked in sugar and a cream of milk, flour, sugar and egg yolk

Fraises cardinal
Strawberries coated with raspberry jelly, served iced

Fraises de Carpentras an sucre avec creme fraiche ou Chantilly
Fresh strawberries with sugar and cream

Fraises ou framboises au champagne
Strawberries or raspberries, coated with sugar and iced champagner

Fraises et framboises Chantilly
Fresh woodland strawberries and raspberries, marinaded with brandy and pepper, served with sugared cream

Fruits Melba
Fruits (peach, apricot or strawberry) cooked in sugar syrup, served on vanilla ice cream, coated with raspberry purée

Fruits rafraichis
Salad of fresh fruits, with sugar and kirsch, rum, applejack or maraschino, served iced

Galette charollaise
Round, flat cake of flour, sugar, almonds, a bit water and different candied fruits, served with black currant jelly

Genoise aux chérises
Torte of butter cream, garnished with candied cherries

Givrées (orange, citron, mandarine)
Orange, lemon or tangerine ice cream served in the paring

Glace panachée
Mixed ice cream

Granité
Ice cream of sugar, water and fruit juice

Marquise glacée
Iced fruit yeast cream

Melon de Scheherazade
Melon with fruit salad of melon pelp, peach, banana, pineapple, raspberry, woodland berries and filled with sugar, doused with a mixture of sparkling wine, peppermint liqueur, kirsch and maraschino

Meringue Chantilly
Pastry of egg yolk yeast with cream

Meringue glacée
Pastry of egg yolk yeast, filled with ice cream

Millats
Black cherries cooked to rags

Milliard
Torte with cherries or grapes

Eufs a la neige
Little potions of beaten white of egg (with sugar) are cooked in vanilla milk and served on iced vanilla cream

Omelette Alaska - Omelette norvegienne
Ice cream scalloped with egg white yeast

Parfait
Sorbet of sugar syrup, egg yolk, cream and taste ingredients like almond milk, chocolate, peach, strawberry, tangerine etc.

Pastis landais
Cake filled with cooked prunes

Petits fours
Different small tartlets

Pie à la rhubarbe
Rhubarb cake

Pithiviers
Puff pastry filled with almonds, icing sugar, egg, butter and rum

Poile belle Helene
1) Peach steamed in sugar syrup on vanilla ice cream, coated with warm chocolate cream
2) Peach steamed in sugar syrup on a biscuit which is tinctured in kirsch and coated with vanilla ice cream, coated with apricot jam and strewn with almond slivers

Poile Bourdaloue
Peach cooked in water with sugar, on vanilla ice cream, strewn with roasted almond slivers

Poiles à la bourguignonne - Poiles au via rouge
Peaches cooked in red wine with sugar

Pommes bonne femme
Baked apples with butter-vanilla-sugar stuffing and currant jelly

Pruneaux d'Agen à l'armagnac
Dried plums, preserved in Armagnac (= a brandy from south-west France)

Salade d'oranges
Salad of orange pieces, raisins, sugar and rum

Sanciaux
Honey biscuits baked in shortening

Savarin
Circular Cake, tinctured in fruit syrup and rum or kirsch, garnished with (vanilla) cream

Sorbet
Ice cream of sugar, water, egg yolk or some cream, fruit juice, liqueur, sparkling wine, wine or kirsch, sometimes flavoured with lemon or orange paring or cloves

Soufflé praliné
Casserole of milk, sugar, vanilla, flour, eggs, butter and almonds

Soufflé Rothschild
Casserole of candied fruits, Danziger Goldwasser (sorry, I don’t have a translation for that one), flavoured with vanilla and garnished with fresh strawberries

Soufflé tous parfums
Casserole in different tastes

Tarte alsacienne
Torte with fruit on vanilla cream

Tarte des sreurs Tatin - Tarte des démoiselles - Tatin Tarte à l'envers
Torte of short crust with in butter and sugar caramelised pommes halves

Tourte charollaise
Peach torte with cream

Tourte Gascogne
Puff pastry cake filled with pommes discs, flavoured with Armagnac (= brandy from south-west France)

Tourteau prune
Cake garnished with prunes, flavoured with orange blossom water

Vacherin
Round pastry of beaten white of egg, filled with ice cream or cream


I hope I could help a bit, although anyone French might give you more common examples.

~Bine

[HGHR_fan]

Hopefully 4 years of French should help you on this....

Also, I looked some up for special occassions.. just in case....

a wedding cake is - un crouque en bouche.... basically it is a pyramid of cream puffs


for everyday there is the always popular - chocolate eclair
Napolean - which is a meuille feuille meaning a layered pastry
creme brulee

that's all I have, but if you need help on any other French culture I'm sure I can find it, I mean it has to be somewhere hiding in the back of my mind

GOOD LUCK!

HGHR_fan

[OliveOil_Med]

I am curious, do French boarding schools have a house sytem the way English boarding school do? I though the house system was a European tradition, but I've been reading, and many are saying that it is only British schools that have them.

I'm not sure. Does anyone know?

[Rhi for HP]

I know the title of the thread is "Culture" help, but I'm posting this in hopes someone out there has some basic French language knowledge...

How do you say "I don't know" in French (well, I can say it, but I can't spell it! )
And then "We'll see" or "Hmm" or even "My schedule's full"...?

Thanks!!!

~Rhi

[kehribar]

Lanugage is a part of culture, is it not?

"I don't know" would be "Je ne sais pas." At least, formally.

Do "Hmm" need a transition?