Politically Incorrect Paris

The pressure of choosing which pictures of Versailles to post has gotten to me, so instead, I'm going to tell you about some other interesting things we saw in Paris. There is a cereal sold in France called Banania. It is very well known, although sales are not quite what they used to be. It has a long and distinguished history. The guy on the tray is the original one. The link to history shows the amazing evolution of the character. Recently the company gave up the copyright to the slogan under pressure from groups in France's former colonies. Apparently we aren't the only ones who think the Banania guy is fun. We were all set to buy one for GM's sister, that is until we turned it over and saw the price tag. We didn't the joke was worth 13 euros. Oh well.

Later in the week we found these jars of Confiture of Guava and Banana. Even before I read that IHT article about Banania, I remembered that Aunt Jemima had to have a makeover. Don't you think that head scarf is cute?
Now these puppies were more in our price range, so we were able to bring them home, yeah! Apparently they are made with cane sugar and cooked in a caldron. Can you see the sarcasm dripping off the page?

So are you thinking the progressive French aren't so progressive anymore? You aren't? Well click the link for this dessert and you might change you mind. Go on, you really should click the link.

Now the French don't have a monopoly on non-politically correct characters. You may have heard from us about the Dutch Christmas traditions and Santa's helper Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). The lawyer in me just has to say, "Res Ipsa Loquitur (the thing speaks for itself)." Sometimes, you can't even look for a meal in peace.

This last thing isn't technically politically incorrect (except on our part for posting it), but it just seemed to fit here. On the drive in, we saw this lady walking down the road. We didn't get a good picture because I had to drag the camera out of the backpack. What is that yellow thing on her head, you ask?

That, my friends, is a yellow plastic sack filled with quite a few pounds of bananas. And yes, she was walking along with it balanced on her head, no hands! It was impressive.