Tilleul. Moelleux. Huit. Mûre. Pas du tout.
If you’ve spoken to me in French, you’ve probably heard me complain about at least one of these words. They’re the words that, in my opinion, are the hardest to say properly in French, the words that I avoid at all costs so that the little accent I still have doesn’t get me laughed at. The Country Boy laughs at me anyway. He hardly spoke English when we met, and now his English is often quite creative: no one doubts that he’s French when he speaks.
But he doesn’t mind, and I do. I live here now, and though I know that everyone who speaks to me finds out rather quickly that I’m not French, I’d rather it not be my accent that gives me away, thus my avoidance of certain words that have me stumbling when I read them aloud in class or on menus, prefering avoidance of blackberry-flavored kir — my favorite kind — than ordering the dreaded drink in a restaurant.
Even worse? Cookie. Surf. Words that the French have appropriated into their language and that I try to pronounce à la francaise, turning them too French to make up for my desire to say them the way I’ve been doing it my whole life.
After all, no matter how you say it, a cookie is a cookie, and it, along with this writer, is American… no matter how long it’s been hanging out in France.
The very first cookie I made on my own was an oatmeal cookie, from the recipe on the back of the Quaker Oats box. Ever since, chewy oatmeal cookies (no raisins!) have been my favorite. TCB was skeptical when I dumped a cup and a half of rolled oats into these cookies, but he was more than happy to help chop the chocolate and, as usual, was pleasantly surprised when the gooey cookies came out of the oven shortly after.
He, like most French people I’ve met, has an aversion to cinnamon, so I left it out of his batch. True to form, when one rock-hard cookie was left days later, he picked it up, sniffed it, and said “Oh, yeah.” I raised an eyebrow, to which he replied, “Cannelle.” Cinnamon. Some things never change… Good old-fashioned American baked goods, in my opinion, should be one of them.
Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies
115 g. (4 oz.) butter, softened
1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
50 g. (1.75 oz.) dark chocolate, chopped into chunks
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Cream the butter and sugars together. Add the egg and vanilla, and stir until combined. Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add to the sugar and butter along with the oats, and mix with a wooden spoon until combined. Stir in the chocolate.
Using a tablespoon, make balls of cookie dough and set them on a greased or nonstick baking sheet. Bake 8 minutes, turning the sheet once during baking. Remove to a wire rack to cool, and serve with a glass of milk.
And they discontinued oatmeal ice cream from Ben and Jerry’s. These cookies with cinnamon should do the trick!
any french words that demand the correct pronunciation of that particular “oo” sound, will out all but the native speaker. I’m nothing like a native speaker, so I get caught out on many other words too, like “oui”, for example. It’s the ending with the slight hiss that I can never get right!
Ironically, the word cookie, though it feels as American as apple pie, is, somewhat like apple pie, a foreigner too. I read a while back in a book about the history of New York that it’s actually a Dutch word – kukie – and the common use of cinnamon is also a Dutch import, chief, as they were at that time, of the spice trade. Still, cookies and milk, I think, really are completely American, and I love them.
I am firmly anti-cinnamon in my oatmeal cookies. No raisins either. In fact, I totally dig them plain as plain can be, with only the caramelly hints from the brown sugar to flavor them. That said, give me a chocolate-pecan-cherry oatmeal cookie, and I will gobble it up. 🙂