Couilles de Suisse-verboten by Chocosuisse?

http://www.lematin.ch/suisse/Chocosuisse-attaque-la-Couille-de-Suisse/story/26219702

There is a long tradition of travelling gastronomy, recipes borrowed and adopted from other regions--- foods, sauces, preparation methods salvaged from travels abroad: French fries, Russian dressing, French dressing, prussiens (aka butterflies and pigs' ears), boules de Berlin, Yorkshire pudding, and so forth.

Now we meet the Couille de Suisse.  It's a Belgian pastry made with delicious fattening things: sugar, flour, butter, eggs, as naughty as the name, a graphic reference to family jewel(s).
It is a fond remembrance of Swiss soldiers who had fought as mercenaries in the 1830s, a food adopted by poor Belgian miners and now a staple dessert in the Hainaut region. A kind of bread pudding with a history, as it were. (Love that last phrase, I never get to use it).

A year or two ago, a group called Les Compagnons de la Couille de Suisse (no kidding) was formed by some good-time Charlies "une confrérie historico-rigolote" as the article says, who wanted to protect the name from commercial exploitation and have a good time eating. They applied to Benelux.for legal recognition, a patent for the recipe.

Except Chocosuisse, an association for the protection of Swiss chocolate and chocolatiers (some very big ones) felt threatened, and sent them a letter telling them, among other things, that they were not allowed to use chocolate in their recipe(s).

Chocolate? Who said chocolate? There is no chocolate in a couille de Suisse.

"Pas très sympa" said Guy Dewier, president of the Compagnons. Chocosuisse was afraid that one day someone might introduce chocolate into a couille, and if it weren't real Swiss chocolate using 'Suisse' would be a legal offense.

The conflict was finally resolved when the Compagnons agreed to drop the term 'confiserie' from their description (??)
Now it's business as usual, and you can apply to become a member of the Compagnons without fearing the wrath of chocolate lawyers. Today I applied, and was accepted as a Compagnon! Let's hear it for gastronomic bonhomie!
Their Facebook site:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=105567426147749&ref=search&sid=505989103.1866684673..1
It appears on the website of the Office des Produits Wallons here:
http://www.opw.be/doc.php?id=sf10&tid=3&docid=224&page=2 

Couilles in the privacy of your own home---the recipe begins:

1 kilo de farine

4 oeufs frais

100 grammes de beurre

70 grammes de levure de boulanger

quelques grammes de sucre cassonade
du beurre mou

go on
.....don't be shy!

Franzen quoted in the Guardian

Jonathan Franzen: 'Twitter is the ultimate irresponsible medium'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/07/jonathan-franzen-calls-twitter-irresponsible?INTCMP=SRCH
"It's hard to cite facts or create an argument in 140 characters … It's like if Kafka had decided to make a video semaphoring The Metamorphosis. Or it's like writing a novel without the letter 'P'… It's the ultimate irresponsible medium."
I wonder at his word 'irresponsible': 
lies?     distortion?     warping our use and sense of language?     a waste of time? 
Perhaps, but these are often true of more verbose and televised media. 

Jami Attenberg heard Franzen speak at Tulane University, and the above is one of the quotes she garnered from the talk. There were other quotes, plus a counter-argument that young, budding, unknown writers need Twitter and other social networking devices, whereas he, Franzen has an established reputation and a publicist and can ignore the needs of the hoi polloi.  
His collegiate look and decent leather accessories may also work for him.
Whatever works.

Nothing to do with my sense of responsibility: I don't use Twitter because I'm too ADD to enter the Twittersphere--I'd end up doing nothing but tweet and run. 
But maybe I'll take a stab at that novel without the letter 'P'....
There's a fine tradition of this sort of thing in France. Bonjour OULIPO.*

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo

Newspaper Guilt - responses

A few confessions, but no sackcloth and ashes. Interesting selection of newspapers mentioned:

Read it and loved it.
Unfortunately haven't had time to read the paper today - do not feel guilty - but did have time to read you!

NF

Great blog Lexie, I know about that guilt. I read one weekly newspaper (German "die Zeit" the most liberal) and screen the daily web editions of the NYT, le Monde, Kurier (Austrian) and sometimes also the Spiegel.....all the web editions for free....I have the free rider guilt!

In Berlin I buy the Tagesspiegel sometimes and curiously enough free editions of newspaper do hardly exist here.

And the rest of the time: guilt, guilt, guilt for not reading all the good articles in the languages that I understand all day every day....(and sometimes I am happy not having read a line for a whole day).

PA

You make me feel so old fashion!   Soon I will feel I have to hide to read my beloved Financial Times. That is where my guilt lies. Of course, the NY Times on line has fancy links, video tours of the Museums they write about etc. but when I read a paper online I always feel that I must be missing some page; some section; some art or music article...then again, it is easier to skip the sports page.

MP

Love it!!!!  

KH

Thank you for the feedback. Nothing like a good compliment to start the day.

Newspaper Guilt

They're disappearing, fast. English-language newspapers are folding like old butterflies. Forgive the analogy, but they've become rarer, endangered and threatened with dusty death.

Surviving newspapers are busy trying to seduce the public with those free, reduced editions with trivial content. With this freebie you don't need cushions for the park bench. Most end up decorating city gutters or hugging the side of tall buildings.
Pay for the full edition and you'll get in-depth reportage, and rich, thoughtful editorials for trimmings.....
Or will you? Your newspaper may already be on the down and down, having laid off good journalists, and content may be read, copied and pasted from other sources.

If you're not virtual you're down for the count.

In the rush to go virtual, newspapers, syndicated or not, are pleading with the public: don't leave us, we're the PRESS! 
We're the life-blood of democracy! 
People often are hesitant or unwilling to subscribe to on-line editions. After all, a huge virtual smorgasbord is waiting out there, two pecks away. 

ipads and other such playthings are easy and seductive, it's like, why bother?
Some subway riders still read newspapers, but few in New York under 45 appear to read hard print news. Books yes, newspapers no, and this is not simply anecdotal. Much of the reading public has migrated to favorite news sites, ones that cater to their cultural and political tastes.
So how much longer can newspapers hold out?  Will they become be like LPs (vinyl to you youth)-- produced for special crowds: the snobs, the sentimentalists, the cognoscenti (who?) and the old-fashioned geysers, who still think a 'reader' is a person.

Do we care? Hell yes we care! 
I love NY Times-print on my sweaty fingers, I love Maureen Dowd,  even if she's shrill, and Suzy Menkes who's a wiz on fashion, and Nicholas Kristof and Paul Krugman, smart and wise and full of compassion, and others in the same IHT that delivers a challenging Sunday crossword, Doonesbury and fine book reviews. 

A good newspaper gives you world news to dig into, editorialists of different political stripes sharing the pages, the opportunity to stretch your mind a bit, or at least put in a newspaper stent to keep it open.

This blog is called Newspaper Guilt. Newspaper Guilt comes in two varieties: the guilt that induces you to buy that newspaper even if you can get it on-line,  and the guilt induced by not buying that newspaper and realizing you are bidding farewell to a very, very old tradition.

PS I'm not including newspapers closed because of scandal-mongering spying and phone-tapping carried out by the crude and the cruel. Mr. Murdoch-- move over, you're squashing dignity and truth and breathing our air.
For a (self-pitying?) picture check out the website of the defunct News of the World that deserved to become defunct.
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/.