1614 Diet French

Read an interesting article about France recently. And about how they are imposing dietary guidelines in their schools. Namely, they are forbidding the use of ketchup except one time a week in school lunches.
No child left behind on condiments.
Ketchup, when it's served that once a week, will be on the day the school serves French Fries. The change is supposedly being made as part of the fight against obesity. And to be fair, they are also rationing mayonnaise, a far more caloric accouterment.
But kids will be able to eat as many baguettes as they want, because, as one official put it, "Cafeterias have a public health mission but also an educative mission. We have to insure children become familiar with French recipes so that they can hand them down to the following generations."
The plan, it seems, is to make sure French schoolchildren don't drown their meals in the quintessentially American condiment ketchup.
But I think it's kind of funny. At least because of some things about food origins. Take French fries. They are made from potatoes. Potatoes came from the Americas. So if there's a quintessentially American dish, it's potatoes.
And while the French may claim to have been the first to Frenchifry them, American fast food brought French fries to the world.
Ketchup, actually, originated in Malaysia, and was brought over to England, where it was toned down. In the early 1800s, somewhere between England and the US, it was mixed with tomato sauce and started to evolve to its current form.
So if the French wish their school cafeterias to be educative, perhaps they can educate their children about the inherent internationalism of the French fried potato and ketchup meal.
World peace and understanding...through condiments.
America, ya gotta love it.