Miles Collins

England beat France-A Kitchen Nightmare!

This post is a tribute to the England rugby team who beat France in Paris in the world cup semi final in Paris last night. The same team which knocked out arch rivals Australia in the quater finals. I felt sorry for the Australians, they were so sure they would win they didn’t bother booking flights home, upon their humiliating defeat the only flight back avaliable was via Heathrow!!

My last Head Pastry Chef was Australian, his replacement is French. This is good. They are both big rugby fans, I am not but patriotic I am and I aim to make the most of it. Four years ago the Australian had to walk into the kitchen after the English beat them in the final with a last minute goal. He walked into a shower of abuse and two fingered salutes, I almost felt sorry for him.

Last night we watched the game in between cooking seventy covers in one and a half hours, Frenchie swore at his rugby team, I swore at my chefs and the occasional waiter in the spirit of fair play. 

France were winning for most of the match, we had a television on in the pastry section with the volume cranked up for the national anthems, less than friendly gestures were waved across the kitchen for every point scored. Frenchie couldn’t believe it when England came back and the final few minutes would have been nail biting but that would be unhygienic.

In the end we won and they lost, my heart went out to two men; Frenchie for the week of jokes he is about to endure and President Sarkozy’s speech writer! In the run up to the game the French players joked about the English as ‘rosbifs’. For anyone unfamiliar with Anglo-French cultural history we are ‘rosbifs’ because we only cook and eat (allegedly) well done roast beef, they are ‘froggies’ because of their love for a plate of frogs legs.

So in the spirit of how the game should be played here’s a symbol of everything that is English, ‘Rosbif-my way’. This one’s for you, Frenchie!