Posted on 03/31/2003 3:59:22 AM PST by chance33_98
Boise Restaurant Offers Freedom -- Not French -- Toast
By Scott Logan
BOISE, ID - In Casablanca, the 1942 film classic, emotional singing of Le Marseillaise, the French national anthem, drowns out a bunch of Nazi crooners at Rick's American Cafe.
It was clearly good against evil.
But 60 years later at another cafe in downtown Boise, all things French -- or seemingly so -- aren't necessarily good anymore.
At the Capri Restaurant on Fairview Avenue, French Toast is now called Freedom Toast and served with a little American flag.
"Everybody's against the French, kinda sorta," said Capri cashier Arlene West. "We're just being patriotic actually. And we're just being funny."
But many patrons were miffed at the French-led opposition to America's war in Iraq. And the jab at anything with the word "French" tied to it is one expression of frustration.
"I don't pay much attention to the French anymore," said Rob Maertens, a senior airman with the Air Force based at Mountain Home who was enjoying a big Capri breakfast complete with Freedom Toast. "I just blow them off. But I am kinda upset they're not helping us after we did so much for them."
Wine connoisseurs at the Boise Co-Op say some customers have shunned French grapes.
"It has become very divisive, nobody sits on the fence," said the Co-Op's Todd Giesler. "They're either for the boycott, which is the minority or people are buying more French wine and saying they want their freedom of speech to be heard on this issue."
One New York-based mustard company with the name of French's is so concerned it's going to be associated with Franceit hired a public relations firm to get out the message that French's Mustard is as American as hot dogs. (Both made their debut at the World's Fair in St. Louis in 1924).
But America and France are old friends.
There's that certain gift of Lady Liberty from France in New York Harbor. And, in 1949,the French gave the people of Idaho a replica of an ancient Greek statue of Winged Victory that now resides in the Statehouse rotunda.
Whether the friendship survives this crisis remains to be seen. If not, as Bogart told Bergman: We'll always have Paris.
(By the way, it may be called French Toast. But an internet search shows it originated at a roadside tavern in upstate New York in 1724, created by a man named Joseph French. Another version states the New York tavern owner originally used French bread to make the breakfast toast.)
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