Monday, February 20, 2006

Eek!

Cocorico!

Jube and I are taking advantage of our holiday (paid for him, not for me) to spend time in Gallargues le Montueux with his family. While we're here, we get to do lots of great things: have our hair cut by Belle-maman, have our car fixed by Beau-papa, make plans for our trip to Norway, and eat Belle-maman's good food . . . or at least, most of her good food. Lately, we have been eating sausages, pork loins, lasagna, pizza, and soup. What's missing?

The poultry! That's right, cases of avian flu have been discovered in France. The Belle-famille no longer buy poultry at the store; the news warns us to stay away from the municipal pigeons; and le Pacha has been (jokingly) considering calling the police because a neighbor hasn't cooped up his chickens yet. Yikes! It was very sad when Jube and I drove past the marshes by the sea on the way back from Montpellier today. When we looked at the beautiful pink flamingoes, we couldn't help thinking about how they were going to kill us all someday soon.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Our US papers and the daily newscasts are barely mentioning the avian flu!! You had to shock me back into my paranoia :-(
Do you think the avian flu might convince the French to be more open to the idea of vegetarianism???

Ksam said...

Why stop eating poultry though? As long as you're not planning on eating raw chicken, there should be no problems, as the virus is killed when you cook the meat.

And Helene, I doubt it, they'll just do what they did when there was a fuss about Mad Cow disease - starting eating more of all the other kinds of meat!

Anonymous said...

Right on Samantha (can you tell we live with farmmers or what?). And any poultry not labeled 'élevé en plien air' shouldn't be risky anyway. The only time those boirds get to breathe fresh air is on the way to the chopping block.

You know the farmers around here with cows are as happy as hogs in slop, though. Beef sales are already up.

Gem said...

Oh, I certainly don't care about eating poultry. My Belle-mere, en revanche, is very paranoid about that kind of thing, so here, we don't eat any. It is sad, though, to think about all those wild birds at risk.

Ksam said...

Just wanted to say I finally made your Eggplant parmesan recipe (the healthy way *S*) last night, and it was delicious! I tried out the chicken parmesan one a few weeks ago, but didn't put enough parmesan in, so that one's à refaire.

Zach G said...

Eeeek! They have found avian flu in Malaysia now!! It was the only country in SE Asia that had no reports (but doubtful no cases) until the other day. Stay away from those birds... and at least you still have sausage as an option... they don't have that here!