It occurs to me this may be a highly regional food item. Cheese curds are really just chunks of (typically) mozzarella or cheddar cheese. Usually about the size of a regular or large marble. They can be bought fresh, or at restaurants you'll generally get them deep fried. That's what White Castle had a few months ago, and they were not quite MN State Fair quality (which are divine), but pretty damned good for the price.

If you want the best possible unfried cheese curds though, look to Wisconsin. In rural areas you can get them ridiculously fresh, and you'll know if you have - they squeak when you bite into them. That stops happening in less than a day, regardless of how they're kept.

Edit: Cheese curds are also a vital component of poutine, a Quebecois dish. French fries, cheese curds, crumbled bacon, and brown gravy. So goddamn bad for you / delicious.

This is based on the 2011 French movie, The Intouchables. It is excellent and I highly recommend everyone to watch it.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1675434/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RqDiYnFxTk

A remake of the original French movie, which was good.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_intouchables

Could someone who speaks better French than I do translate what the station announcer says at the end?

Ladle Rat Rotten Hut

Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage, honor itch offer lodge dock florist. Disk ladle gull orphan worry ladle cluck wetter putty ladle rat hut, an fur disk raisin pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.

Wan moaning, Rat Rotten Hut's murder colder inset, "Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, heresy ladle basking winsome burden barter an shirker cockles. Tick disk ladle basking tutor cordage offer groin-murder hoe lifts honor udder site offer florist. Shaker lake! Dun stopper laundry wrote! An yonder nor sorghum-stenches, dun stopper torque wet strainers!"

"Hoe-cake, murder," resplendent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, an tickle ladle basking an stuttered oft. Honor wrote tutor cordage offer groin-murder, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut mitten anomalous woof. "Wail, wail, wail!" set disk wicket woof, "Evanescent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut! Wares are putty ladle gull goring wizard ladle basking?"

"Armor goring tumor groin-murder's," reprisal ladle gull. "Grammar's seeking bet. Armor ticking arson burden barter an shirker cockles."

"O hoe! Heifer blessing woke," setter wicket woof, butter taught tomb shelf, "Oil tickle shirt court tutor cordage offer groin-murder. Oil ketchup wetter letter, an den - O bore!"

Soda wicket woof tucker shirt court, an whinney retched a cordage offer groin-murder, picked inner widow, an sore debtor pore oil worming worse lion inner bet. Inner flesh, disk abdominal woof lipped honor bet an at a rope. Den knee poled honor groin-murder's nut cup an gnat-gun, any curdled dope inner bet.

Inner ladle wile, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut a raft attar cordage, an ranker dough belle. "Comb ink, sweat hard," setter wicket woof, disgracing is verse. Ladle Rat Rotten Hut entity bet rum an stud buyer groin-murder's bet.

"O Grammar!" crater ladle gull, "Wood bag icer gut! A nervous sausage bag ice!"

"Battered lucky chew whiff, doling," whiskered disk ratchet woof, wetter wicket small.

"O Grammar, water bag noise! A nervous sore suture anomolous prognosis!"

"Battered small your whiff," insert a woof, ants mouse worse waddling.

"O Grammar, water bag mousy gut! A nervous sore suture bag mouse!"

Daze worry on-forger-nut gulls lest warts. Oil offer sodden, thoroughing offer carvers an sprinkling otter bet, disk curl and bloat-thursday woof ceased pore Ladle Rat Rotten Hut an garbled erupt.

Mural: Yonder nor sorghum stenches shut ladle gulls stopper torque wet strainers.

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What's Going On?

This story, believe it or not, is the very familiar fable of Little Red Riding Hood. This curious version was written in 1940 by a professor of French named H. L. Chace, who wanted to show his students that intonation - that is, the melody of a language - is an integral part of its meaning. The words here are all common English words, but not the ones you'd expect to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

You're being mean to French people. J/K. That fable is a taste of our own medicine, but it's not too late to fix it!

It turns into a weird combination of French, German, and and Irish Gaelic?

Cool.

You really don't know the history of your own religion, do you?

"Hey, Protestants, convert or die!" says the French Catholic.
"Hey, Catholics, convert or die!" says the Austrian Protestant.
"Hey, Jews, convert or die! Uh, but lend us money first -- we need to kill those false Christians over there!" says both the French Catholic and the Austrian Protestant.

You know Christians waged wars on each other over whether the Bible should be in common vernacular or not, right?

Also, you have no fucking clue about Islam. Learn about them? I've gone to a mosque (Sunni); I've watched them pray; I've talked to an Imam. Which of any of the above three have YOU done, O Scholar of Islam?

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This is true in Canada as well. If you ask a french person what nationality they are, they will ALWAYS say French before Canadian. In their eyes, they are French who happen to live in Canada, and French will always be their primary identity. Even within Canada, they are considered a "Distinct Society." Quebec has their own laws that are above and beyond the Federal laws. A lot of these laws pertain to maintaining their French status first.

Label laws in Canada say we always have to have French and English on everything you buy, but in Quebec, they don't require English. Same with signage.

So the French do have a different way of assigning their allegiances. To some it may be subtle, but it's actually pretty entrenched in their culture.

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I have a few French friends, and as I see it there's quite a fundamental cultural difference at play here. I'll do my best to explain it, although I don't fully understand it myself.

There's a very fundamental French principle of equality that's considered as sacred as American freedom of speech. It means that when you're French, you're French, and explicitly not a member of a sub-culture. I heard about this when they banned wearing a hijab (I think) in schools: the children are French first, and must comply by French norms above others.

The French government have fought very hard to fight the foundation of religious and ethnic sub-cultures within France. This is obviously very different to the American approach of embracing your heritage and, just as Freedom of Speech has unwanted side-effects, so does this. The players are French, not African. Their cultural past was indeed wiped when they became French (at birth or otherwise). Yes, they're of African descent, but that's considered very different to being African.

Now, it's fair enough to argue the the American approach is better, but I think it's important to understand that this is not the French approach. There is a fundamental cultural difference there, and without understanding that, you're going to miss the point of their argument.

This is needless escalation.

First, yeah, a joke on a tv show doesn't warrant a letter from an Ambassador, and is needlessly escalating things.

Next though, Noah's response is unwarranted too, and is needlessly escalating again. Worse still, Noah goes for the throat against the ambassador implying that the ambassador is party to the problem of calling troublesome immigrants African and successful ones simply French.

So, I googled Gerard Araud for a minute to see what I could about where he stood on immigration. That came to the link below after a round of Islamic terrorist attacks within France.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/01/14/377262623/french-ambassador-to-u-s-outlines-predicament-of-immigration

"France is a country of 65 million inhabitants. There are between 5 and 6 million Muslims. And I guess 99.9 percent of Muslims are peaceful citizens. All the polls are showing their commitment to France. They are French; most of them are born in our country. So the message that we have to send to them is, they are part of the nation. They are a full part of the nation."

So he seems like an ally who already unequivocally put himself out there fully supporting (largely Arab and African)Muslims in the heat of a terrorist attack 3 years ago. So, not so much a fair whether friend only embracing French citizens of diverse backgrounds when they are champions, but in the much much harder time when the press coverage was terrifically negative.

So, the face value reason for the Ambassador's letter of not legitimising the neo-nazi right notion that true French citizens are "white/christian" looks absolutely his true intent.

The escalation here is not to be celebrated, it is needless division between people with the same good cause. The racists don't need the help of the rest of us fighting with one another.

Trevor Responds to Criticism from the French Ambassador has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine on that post.