What have the Romans Done For Us?

  With P&P, Peter and Valerie, in the summer kitchen, we were munching Raymong Blong's Lemon cake, with them imparting some juicy gossip about a couple who had viewed our house, (you should have seen my jaw drop and eyes widen dear Reader,) and Peter said,
"Someone should start a blog about all the Aquitaine Ex-pat gossip". They'd be run outta town, bien sur, but then I said, airily,
"Oh I have a blog",. After which I sat there feeling guilty. Not only had I eaten 2 slices of cake but I had laid claim to a blog to which I contribute but fitfully. You lot often chide me about it.. So:

What have the Romans ever done for us? - Given us bluddy purslane that's what. Not content with bestowing their ground elder on South Leicestershire,
 " So good, mia amici, with garlic and zees lovely olio from my amphora", but they then decide that hat horrid weed purslane made a good salad ingredient and infect our potager here with the stuff. (have just noticed I have used John Humphries' abhorred historic present.) We could never have eaten all the ground elder we wrestled from under the hedge to stop it getting into the fritillaries, and now we have enough salad thank you. And courgettes. And beans, tomatoes, cucumbers... Squash the size of footballs. 2 months before their harvest is due. Temperatures suddenly rose in mid-July but rain still fell every few days so vegetation went mad.
  At least the runner beans find good homes as no-one else round here seems to grow them. Otherwise people arrive at each other's barbeques, soirées gourmandes, meet-up cafés, with droopy carrier bags full of produce that they try to force on other carrier-bag-toters with identical produce.
  And I watch people buying courgettes and tomatoes in Intermarché and wonder what they do grow in their own gardens. Of course, they could be holiday makers stocking up. But home cooking is unnecessary at the moment, the tourists soon find all the soirées and night markets where we all eat while our saucepans gather dust. It's a rare chance to eat chips, with duck sausages, or pizza, or fillet steaks you pick and have griddled, or moules...

Did the Romans invent the French fry? Fry, Stephen, thinks not; it was probably a Belgian. Le Sauvetat on Fridays has the best pizzas and tasteful live music, Duras, moules and specialities from Réunion and very loud music of varying standard. The best Duras nights, Thursdays, are when Michel plays, a young accordianist who came 2nd in the French equivalent of X-Factor. Soumensac everything duck-related, on Sundays, no music but you can be pestered by strolling magicians and balloon modellers. And tonight, Tuesday, it's come round to Monteton again, with the butcher from Allemans doing a roaring trade from his van with the only edible beef we've ever had in France. Plus divine desserts and a cheese man who must be visited. And last week a superb young three-piece playing Jazz/ blues. Although all the old hands agree 'Soumensac is so passé...' it has the view, and Brigitte's wine, so, impossible to choose between them.

The shouty English have arrived and have found all these places too. The Scots and Irish holiday early, have gone, and so miss it all. They don't shout, don't impinge, although I was once asked in Leclerc where the porridge was shelved. The English do their supermarket trolley dashes in packs, trailing disgruntled 9-year-olds called Freddy and Meredith or some such. They have just torn themselves from their rented poolsides, thrown on some loose cotton toga-like thing over bikinis and come flip-flopping around the aisles, calling to each other.
"Bryony, do we need pesto?" "Have you found the barbeque spice Naomi?" and in one aisle, "Eoh, it's all English stuff, how funny, why would anyone want Scotts Porridge Oats?" (Clue's in the name, Naomi.)
 I wonder would they care if they knew how shocked the French are by their loudness and undress? Chantal told me she and her neighbours consider it 'très impoli'. I try to apologise for them, saying ruefully they wouldn't do it at home. "Alors, pourquoi ici?" she replies.

The Romans would recognise it, the sarong/toga, the sandals, the sense of entitlement.
Sometimes, after 10 years and 8 months I am barely aware that I am living in a different culture until poorer aspects of my own bring me up short.