International Herald Tribune
In a desperate effort to stem the rising tide of the Mafia, France has banned spaghetti and meatballs. The venerated dish, first brought to France by the agents of Catherine de Medici, is a favorite of wiseguys around the world. Godfathers, caporegimes, consiglieres and ordinary soldiers enjoy the dish regularly, and it’s hoped that making it unavailable will drive the powerful French Cosa Nostra from the Republic forever.
“Leave it to the French to come up with a culinary solution,” said Franklin Wasserman, an Oxford professor who specializes in the eating habits of European gangsters and the influence of food on underworld activity. “This is ingenious,” he added.
The special project, dubbed Operation Mama Mia, began March 19 at the Feast of San Giuseppe on Champs-Élysées, when INTERPOL agents seized several thousand meatballs, 16 gallons of tomato sauce, 500 boxes of spaghetti and several large pots. Just to be sure, several hundred crates of sausages, peppers and rolls were confiscated as well. Tomato sauce spilled in the streets, a grim reminder of the dark history of the Mafia in France. The festival was disrupted, but several people persisted in a feeble attempt to keep it going.
“That will get these gumba bastards where it hurts,” said Inspector Cochon Goinfre of the Paris Metropolitan Police, which is sort of cooperating with the operation. He then sat down to a dish of confit de carnard, which was swiped in retaliation by a bus boy who is visiting as an exchange student from Rome.
Nicholas Sarkozy, le president du France, immediately signed an executive order banning anyone in a public restaurant from tucking their napkin into their shirt. Known in Italian as the gonna del ventre, the tucked in napkin has kept generations of Italians enslaved to the Mafia. “This is more than the symbol of oppression,” said Prof. Pierre de Pomp of La Sorbonne. “This is the way these men are controlled.”
“We will have none of that bullshit here,” said a spokesman for President Sarkozy, who later found his car had been buried in ricotta cheese. “This is bullshit,” he added, as he called a taxi and was forced to wait 45 minutes for it to arrive. When it did, there were already six euros on the meter.
Meanwhile, a special police force dubbed les Flics de Cuisine stormed into several Italian restaurants in Paris’s Petite Italy, confiscating bread crumbs and parmesan cheese, along with ground beef, cases of pasta and a tattered copy of Mama Leone’s Cookbook. In one raid, agents raced into the renowned Iannello restaurant as Augusto di Spessore, the Italian ambassador to France, lifted a fork to his mouth. He pushed over the table to protect his family, then staggered out into the streets, where he took out his cell phone and called his publicist.
At midnight, one of France’s most powerful judges ordered that linguine and spaghettini could be seized along with lasagna and penne. But French mafiosi went to the mats, taking 200 goats hostage in the Loire Valley and blowing up vintages in the Bordeaux region.
Despite these setbacks, authorities were satisfied they were making progress. A high-stakes dice game along the Seine was put out of business, and a protection racket that had been demanding old copies of Playboy from book dealers along the river seemed to grind to a halt. Once-powerful leaders of French organized crime families cried like babies.
“This cannot be,” said one.
I get your humor Amanda! though i must admit i needed the package store explanation to reaallly get it 🙂
I think we should have an innuendo day once a month for some light relief.
Thanks for the laughs, folks! In all seriousness, though, I am of both Italian and French descent, had a Roman Catholic father and an old-order Mennonite (French protestant) mother, and have very strong Pisces and Virgo in my natal chart. Have a LOT of dualities/polarizations to synthesize/integrate. Just for today, I think I’ll put on a pot of sauce to cook for the day, have a Nicoise salad for lunch, and enjoy a heaping plate of homemade spaghetti and meatballs for supper.
Again, thanks for the laughs.
haha — eric, no, i was not confusing you with quax.
i was referring to the photo below of the walgreen’s & the liquor store. someone made a comment there bout how liquor stores in some states are called “package stores” (which confused the hell out of me when i was in school in MA). and they noted how big the store was in the photo.
…hence, my leap to this comment thread, with the plays on “faggots” and “fanny packs” — i just extended the innuendo to “package.”
*sigh* some days no one gets my humor…………..
ok, maybe even most days…
Why don’t they just ban every (Italian) word that has not been fully Frenched whcih would then take away it’s recognizability and no one would recognize sinage foran Italian Ristorante and no one could read the menu, not even the Italianas and wannanbees. AND have all the servers wear burqas. That would surely starve out the Mafia.
I think Amanda was confusing me with Quax, which is fine, since I have a massive crush on Maya.
@Carrie – fanny means vagina in the UK. When I first moved there and heard the expression, my first thought was how practical a “fanny pack” could be in some circumstances!
mystes, i was playing, too. or certainly tongue firmly planted etc. (i can’t even see my comment now.) and i was referring to fe’s use of the word euphemize. tricky, this commenting business. i hope i manage my in-person communications better than this, this weekend. otherwise i may get into a heap of trouble! actually, looking ahead vaguely, i see a minefield… running off now to dig out my heat sensor goggles, kevlar vest, gown and jewels.
:::looking around:::: What photo? Where is the photo of his “package?”
::::laughing::::
I cannot eat fried earth apples alas, they make me fat (the potatoes, not the frying).
chutzpah, what does “fanny” mean elsewhere? :::revealing my ignorance::::
Michele, I wasn’t euphemizing, I was playing.
If not I’d’ve used the proper ‘de’.
Apples (pommes)
Earth apples (pommes de terre)
Fried earth apples (yum)
Now I must go get me some.
Maintenant, je les dois avoir.
(Q: Can my French be any more wretched? A: You betched.)
Alright……I am feeling a bit panic stricken thinking this
Might catch on here in the states…..should I call my union rep?
Bastards aren’t taking my spaghetti and meatballs…over my dead body!
Fricken assholes.
well, eric — i guess that explains the size of your package in the photo below…..
;P
well I keep my fags in my fanny pack
Im still not used to the American meaning of ‘fanny’
I have to admit i thought about putting in an international explanation of the British uses of the word faggot, but i decided not too 😀
this whole “I’m going out for a fag” thing in England takes about 10 years to get used to
oh — chutzpah — i did a double-take with “faggots.” took me a minute…
potatoes are pommes du terre
hence fries are pommes frites
Fried earth apples – I love how the French euphemize food.
Fried earth apples. (pomme du terre frite) I’ve always liked that idea. . .
Polenta will be next, and I will have to forgo andouiette for the duration.
It will end up coming face to face with the tyranny of pommes frites. Will America survive this?
Further reports suggest that an entire trainload of Italian comestibles has been seized at the German border, disguised as sugar beets and Mercedes cars. Apparently the douaniers became suspicious because a strong odor of Italian sausage was wafting from the sugar beet cars.
A report from Paris indicates that security has been tightened around the French First Lady, Carla Bruni, as the result of blatant threats to kidnap the Italian-born woman and hold her for bargaining with le President.
According to the BBC, Mafia sympathisers in the UK have been shipping over faggots to stem the shortage and there was a meatball run in Fortnum and Mason where riot police had to be called in.
touché :0