The stuff of boycotts

I received a call from my good friend Billy Cobalt the other day, who asked me to join him in a boycott of Russian food.

“Everyone is boycotting French food and wine,” he said, “but who’s boycotting borscht and boiled potatoes?”

“Nobody,” I said, “because nobody but Russian peasants eat borscht and boiled potatoes.”

“Then what about Russian vodka?”

He had a point. The Russians probably consume more vodka than borscht, but then just about every country in Europe is producing vodka. And I doubt that anyone who drinks Russian vodka is going to stop. War is hell but booze makes it tolerable.

Cobalt’s boycott idea was based on the reluctance of France, Russia and Germany to back our somewhat bombastic idea of bombing Iraq into confetti. That’s true as I write this on Friday, anyhow. Who knows what the weekend has wrought?

I passed on Cobalt’s invitation to join a boycott of Russian food. Later he suggested that maybe we ought to boycott German products but then thought better of it. Anger the Germans, and they’re liable to be marching into Poland by Sunday.

China is also not jumping on our war wagon. But there is no way on God’s blue Earth that anyone is going to give up egg foo yong or won-ton soup. Even when we were fighting the Chinese in Korea, Americans were still gobbling up pork fried rice and bean sprouts faster than Chinese kitchens could turn them out.

France is an easy target because its people are so bloody arrogant. It has been the subject of many boycotts in the past, including those aimed at the country’s testing of nuclear arms, its refusal to let our planes fly over on the way to bombing Libya and its cruelty to frogs. I knew about two of the boycotts, but I had never heard about the one involving frogs.

The Animal Rights League called for a boycott of French products because “amputating the legs of a live frog [for food] is barbaric and cruel.” I guess it’s the moral equivalent of eating a chicken while it is still kicking. That would not only be barbaric and cruel, but a squirming chicken would also be impossible to eat. You try biting into a chicken leg while the animal is pecking at your head.

One Web site, quoting Bart Simpson, calls the French “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” and, while acknowledging their contribution in the First World War, goes on to tell them that “only the perverse, the effete, and the ‘University’ educated Sodomite remain in your despicable country.” I didn’t know that.

The boycotters are insisting that we change the name of French fries to freedom fries, but then what about all those other French things? Freedom toast? Freedom bread? Freedom onion soup? Freedom kissing?

French kissing is what a lot of guys did in the old days, but now it’s called open-mouth kissing, an art form of close friendship developed in Hollywood. Participants go at each other like yawning alligators with tongues already halfway out of their mouths when they’re still several feet apart. If you tried to ban that, moviemakers would rise as one in righteous anger. It’s the glue that binds Hollywood.

“What about boycotting stuff from Belgium?”

That’s Billy Cobalt on the phone again. Belgium dragged its feet when Bush was trying to organize NATO support. “Belgian what?” I said. “Belgian endive? Who eats Belgian endive?”

“Who drinks French wine?” he snapped back. “Ninety percent of America doesn’t know what the devil Pouilly-Fume is. They think it’s Mexican for no smoking.”

The Belgians eat a lot of French food, which has probably contributed to their fragile sensibilities. But they also enjoy a hearty meal of pig snout stew washed down with cherry beer, which has got to addle them a little. I can boycott that easily.

Those of us who favor peace and love and freedom kissing might consider a boycott on the countries that are lining up to bomb Iraq, but that would include us. How do you boycott American food? What is American food? Pork chops and potato salad? Steak and eggs? We could boycott ketchup but truckers would resist.

England, of course, has no edible products unless you’re a fan of mutton. I mean, they’re very nice people and have a lovely, lyrical way of speaking, but as Voltaire once remarked, “England has 42 religions and only two sauces.” One of those sauces is a thick, creamy substance that covers something gray in a bowl. I know. I ate it once.

Boycotting anything is actually pretty dumb. I’m not always sure what wines are French and I don’t know much about Spanish products, either. Spain is backing us too, but with what? Picador spears? I think I’ll just go on eating and drinking whatever I please. I’m just glad Mexico is leaning toward us. I’d hate to give up tacos.

*

Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.