Can our fries be French again?

by Denny Banister

Some food establishments no longer list French fries on their menu to protest the refusal of the French government to support the United States and Britain in the ousting of Saddam Hussein and his regime in Iraq. They still serve fries, but call them ‘freedom’ fries. Imagine what could happen if we were to substitute the word ‘freedom’ for ‘French’ throughout our culture.

When I was in college, we had a foreign exchange student from Freedom. I was quite taken with her. She wore her hair in a beautiful freedom braid, wore freedom stockings and had the cutest Freedom accent.

I finally built up my nerve to ask her out, and took her to breakfast – we ate freedom toast. I did not make the best first impression, however. I bit my tongue and used a few inappropriate descriptive adjectives. I had to ask her to ‘pardon my freedom.’

She forgave me, and even agreed to a second date. I took her to a nice freedom restaurant for dinner. I dressed in my best outfit to hopefully make a better impression than I did on our first date. I even wore a fancy dress shirt with freedom cuffs and cuff links.

The mater d’ led us through freedom doors to our table, where we promptly ordered. We began our meal with a bottle of freedom wine and some warm freedom bread with butter. A trio, consisting of a cello, violin and freedom horn played music for dining.

For the meal, we had salads with freedom dressing, freedom cut green beans with almonds, and freedom dip roast beef sandwiches. She ate her freedom dip au jus, but I preferred mine with mustard – Freedom’s Mustard. For dessert, we shared some delicious freedom pastry and freshly brewed freedom-roast coffee.

When I walked her to her dorm to say goodnight, I leaned forward hopeful for – dare I say – a freedom kiss. She simply smiled and said, “Au revoir.” I felt both dejected and on cloud nine at the same time. I was hopelessly in love, even though I knew she would someday return to Freedom.

She taught me to speak a little Freedom, and I wanted to become proficient in the language. Our college allowed me to enroll in Freedom II, but only upon completion of a course in remedial Freedom to get me up to speed.

She never did return to Freedom. We were married, and honeymooned in the famous Freedom Quarter of New Orleans. We enjoyed lots of Cajun food and listened to the Cajun music of one of the well known locals, Fiddling “Freedomie” Burque.

We moved to Freedom Lick, Indiana, rented an apartment and decorated our three rooms with freedom provincial furniture. We even got a dog – you guessed it, a Freedom Poodle. We loved to curl up on our freedom loveseat and watch our favorite movie, The Freedom Connection with Gene Hackman.

Okay, ENOUGH ALREADY! Americans may not approve of everything the French do or say, but it is not unpatriotic to enjoy our French heritage. Please, can we let our fries be French again?

(Denny Banister, of Jefferson City, Mo., is the assistant director of information and public relations for the Missouri Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization.)