Hip cool Tony: "Why the French don't suck"

Sitting in a Parisian side-walk caffe`, Tony ponders on what makes the French truly great:

"What are the French famous for? Perfume, it smells good - the sense of smell. Food, it tastes good - the sense of taste. Art, architecture, visual sense. Ok. There's really no explanation for their crap pop music, but, y'know, three out of four is not bad. So it's all matters of the senses, directed towards pleasure. Sensuality and food in general being the best example.

In the English-speaking world there's always been a certain ambivalence about taking pleasure at the table. There's this notion, this puritanical notion, that if you take too much pleasure in your food, that it might somehow lead to bad character, might lead to harder stuff, like sex, for instance. I think the French have always understood that, yeah, hell, yeah, it does lead to sex, and it should. But that residual sense of food being good, of food being important, of being worth waiting for, uh, of food being worth spending time with... eating, uh, is and should be a joyous occasion, as should the use of all your senses.

So, America, perhaps you should try. Maybe duck out of the office when the boss isn't looking or call in sick for that boring meeting, pull up a chair at a local joint, grab a tasty bevarage, and eat a ham sandwich, really eat a ham sandwich. You just may find that you not only love the French again, but you may also love life, and, ultimately, the world. "

One of the coolest things Bourdain has ever said and one that elevates him to the very pantheon of hip coolness. This is not only an homage to France, French culture, and the French, but an homage to life itself, to everything that makes life worth living.

I have only one thing to add to that, "A votre sante`!" [cheers!] and "Vive la France!" [hurray for France!]