#and none of it transfers to english dlkfldkfd

[moth-time]

hello friend.

for the non-us asks, can i pls ask (for whatever country you want/both): 4, 5 & 7?

Hi! Thanks you for sending these in :D

4. favourite dish specific for your country?

french: oh man there's so many fantastic french dishes, you make me choose one?? Ok I'm going to pick a classic but specifically my mom's version (my mom is dutch, does this make this fusion cuisine?) because it tastes like childhood and also it's so, so easy to make:

Tarte tatin! It's a caramelized apple cake. The fancy versions (see picture below) requires you to carefully arrange the apples and painstakingly flip the cake, but the lazy version is a lot easier.

My mom basically does it like this: - In a deep dish, arrange apple slices in circles until the dish is full. Sour apples are best. Make two layers, ideally the whole thing is slightly domed. You can add a few fresh rosemary needles to the apples if you want, but only a few! 5-7 should be plenty. - Drape dough of your choice on top - my mom usually uses store-bought laminated dough - making sure to cover the whole thing. Then poke some holes in the dough with a knife. You can arrange them in a circle for prettiness. - Pour a cup worth of melted butter and honey (50/50) on the whole thing, making sure to pour a generous amount into the holes in the dough so the apples are also soaked. - Push the whole thing into the oven at 180°C (with bottom heat!) for roughly half an hour, or until the dough is golden and flaky. - That's it! You can flip it but I don't bother, I just messily scoop apples and dough out of the dish. The honey and butter caramelizes and the whole dish is so, so tasty.

german: I really really really like a good Gulasch. Especially with wild meat like deer meat (Rehgulasch). I guess arguably it's not a dish specific to my country, since a whole lot of places make this too, but they're always a little different in every region. This one has mushrooms and juniper berries in it, and it's a perfect, hearty winter dish. Serve with potatoes or potato dumplings (Kartoffelknödel).

5. favourite song in your native language?

I'm so sorry neither of these are going to be even remotely comprehensible for non-native speakers. I always want to share obscure french new-wave music or german punk, but both of these rely heavily on people understanding the lyrics. They are funny because they are absurd, or crass, and very hard to translate. I guess that's part of the charm?

That said:

french: Le blues de Francoise - La Femme La Femme (the woman) is a French psych-punk band who does very floaty electronic music. Their lyrics tend to be really sarcastic and mean, the characters they play deeply unlikable, and the contrast to the peppy, spacey dance music is very funny to me. The lyrics of Le blues de Francoise (Francoise's blues) are about a woman named Francoise who is having a depressive episode following a break-up, and is told from the point of view of a "friend" who tells her "come on Francoise, get yourself together. I tell you this as a friend, you aren't pretty when you're crying". It's SO mean, and so many of their songs are like that x)

A lot of french alternative music is like this, imo. Just. Mean. Or plain absurd, french humor has a lot of absurdism to it.

german: Alt sein - Pisse Pisse (literally just: Piss) is a German punk band. They write songs about social inequality and deeply sarcastic and crass about it. Alt sein (to be old) is about being old and grumpy and slightly senile (or maybe just pretending to be to get away with theft). It's really hard to translate, it's a very German punk sentiment. Being really tired of the world turning, mad and impotent, doing small stupid things just to have any kind of impact on the world around you. All of their songs are kinda like that. I also really like Vernissage, ranting about the world of commercial art and how you have to kiss ass to make it anywhere, not having merit but just being the best at groveling.

7. three words from your native language that you like the most?

french:

cagouille: a regional word for snail! It's just a very cute and fun word. Cagouille! Doesn't it fit the animal perfectly? It's so round.

vistemboir: ok this is a made up word but it sounds so quintessentially french and I love it. A vistemboir is an object from a short story by Jaques Perret, titled Le Machin (the thing). It's a thingamabob, essentially.

oiseau: french word for bird, mainly famous for being five vowels and only one consonant (and a fricative, to boot). Isn't it perfectly shaped?

german:

Kreisverwaltungsreferat: look this one just cracks me up because it's so damn german. Google translates it as "district administration department" and yeah sounds about right. But look at it. It has to many letters. So many of them are consonants. Presposperous.

Rettich: Raddish. Look, it's the same one in english. But the german one has a 'ch' sound in it, which english doesn't have. Fun sound! And a little Rettich is a Radieschen. Look at it, it's got a diminutive and everything!

Schorle: Okay this one I'm adding mainly because a Schorle is a cool thing that seems to be fairly specific to Germany: It's fruit juice cut with sparkling water. Typically half and half. Depending on the type of juice you would add the name of the fruit in front. So Apfelschorle (with apple juice), Johannisbeerschorle (with red current juice), etc. You can get a Schorle in p much any restaurant, it's usually the cheapest non-alcoholic option, too. Refreshing!