The Wrong Condiment

No matter how many baguettes I eat when traveling in France, I will always be a foreigner. Despite my attempts to assimilate into French culture, there some tics that I will never master:

1. French food: especially eating French fries with mayonnaise. The French, ignoring everything that is taught about fats and lipids in junior-high health class, eat their frites with globs of straight mayonnaise. Gross.

2. I cannot taste the difference between a French champagne that is “unctuous” and one has a “pronounced attack.” I truly admire the French for their amazingly developed palates and take full responsibility for my own pathetic, cultureless taste buds.

3. I own sneakers, and I will not part with them. I admire the beautiful French women who can not only stay skinnier than me while eating French fries with mayonnaise but can also walk faster than me in 4 inch heels.

4. Despite three years of college French classes, I cannot pronounce the names of many of the towns that I visit. “Beaune” is not “bee-une,” “be-a-une,” or “bee-on.” It’s “bone.” One syllable.

Luckily, the French people are a forgiving people. With that in mind, I will contentedly eat my ketchup, drink €2 rosé, and admire the beautiful French hotels, Hôtel Dieu and many others, from the lowly position of my Nikes.

—Sarah Ashburn