I’ve been married for 5 years now and my husband is still full of surprises! Sometimes they’re funny.
Do you know how to open a container of milk? Of course you do. Small children know how to open a container of milk… but not all containers are created equal! Give a French person a carton of milk (American style) to open and let hilarity ensue. We just had a laugh over how to open milk. Seriously. Milk.
Read on about how to open milk the French way!
France is both similar to and different than life in the USA. You’ll notice the big things first, and then when you least expect it, a little difference that you didn’t even know existed will have you bent over in a fit of laughter at 11 p.m. on a Thursday. So first, let’s talk about milk.
How did this come up? I read an intriguing post about how to tell if someone is a spy on Paris Perfect and figured I’d give Tom the test. I asked him how he would open each of the containers pictured above. He looked at me suspiciously but didn’t hesitate. For the first two I asked him about (the one in the center and on the right), he passed with flying colors, but what about the American carton pictured on the left? Oh man.
He looks at the picture a little perplexed and pauses for a second. I could see the gears in his head turning. He then says (and I quote), “Well… there’s no bouchon so you have to cut. I’d get some scissors and then open the side…”
Wrong answer.
I stopped him right there.
We both had a good laugh and I pointed him to a YouTube video showing him exactly how to open a carton of milk. He’s not a big milk drinker and amen for that because I’m sure he would have figured this out the hard way. Thanks Paris Perfect for letting me know I needed to intervene, otherwise he’d be the asshole mangling a perfectly good carton of milk like this guy below:
Why wouldn’t a French person know how to open a milk carton like the ones you’d commonly find in the US?
Because milk doesn’t come in the same time of packaging here! First, in France you can find milk in a bottle where you just screw off the top and pour or in a carton like the one on the right in the photo above. The UHT milk in a brique is stored at room temperature and shelf stable. You fold out one side, cut an opening with scissors and hope that when you pour it, it ends up in the bowl or cup and not dribbled down the side of the package. I usually go for the bottle.
Yes or no, the hard way
If you follow me on Facebook, you saw this next photo the other day when I asked for your opinion. Is it opposite day or are you just French?
Pictured here is a part of the paper we got from our hot water heater maintenance guy. The part asking if the work is done (chantier fini) has two choices next to it, yes or no.
I said to Tom after looking at it, “Oh, the company is saying the work isn’t done.”
“No, he crossed out the ‘non’ meaning ‘oui’ it’s done.”
“What, wouldn’t he just circle oui if he meant oui? Any mark, or x, or circle on the word is selecting it… so is the work done or not done??”
Since we’re in France and I’m not French, Tom is most likely right (often the case), but what is your first reaction?
When you play the lottery you don’t put an X through each number you do NOT want to play; you fill in the ones you DO want. Seems counter-intuitive to me to put a line through the thing you don’t want. Why not just circle the one you’d like to select?
A woman commented on my FB post and said often in a situation like this you see “rayer la mention inutile,” meaning put a line through the one you don’t want. Now it makes sense. Even though that wasn’t written on my paper, it’s what the French are used to doing.
But I could see how this might lead to misunderstandings. If Tom had an issue at a store in the US and filled out one of those forms that asked if you wanted a manager to contact you and put a line through no to mean yes, he’d probably be wondering why no one is calling.
OK then, let me end this illuminating lesson on how to open milk there.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Excellent point! So nuanced!
My first experience with UHT milk that you opened with scissors was in the ’80s in Africa. I had no idea that milk could be bought and stored without refrigeration forever more or less. Since I had no electricity, this was a good thing. I came to appreciate the tetrahedron UHT packets of milk. I believe they came from Parmalat, an Italian company, which became famous for UHT milk and later famous for a huge scandal. But I don’t recall the details.
Actually, flushing toilets is similar. My brother told me, during a visit, that every toilet had a different way to flush and it was a huge mystery to him every time. Pull a cord? Push a button? Which button? Maybe you lift the button….
How long did you live w/o electricity? Did you ever get used to it? Not sure I’d make it. But I bet you appreciated everything once you moved. We’re so spoiled by modern technology these days! Thank you for your comment 😉
Ok all those milk containers look easy to open we have all of them here, the note well I am with Tom here you cross out the wrong word
I love learning about Aussie culture through you, Jo-Anne 😉
It took me a while to figure out how to open milk in France. It took me a while to even find milk at the food store when we first moved to France. I kept looking in the refrigerator section when all along they were just kept near the eggs not refrigerator. Used to freak me out. I had never hear of UHT before that.
Yup, the milk is kept near the eggs in my local store too. So funny how we’ve all experienced confusion in the grocery store at one point or another. I had never had UHT before France either. France is all about fresh food, market culture, etc. but the milk seems the most processed of all! Warm? On the shelf? Makes me wonder.
Here speaks a French woman who lives in the US since 2013. Before that, I lived in Germany for 20 years. French milk is maybe the worst in the world and I have never understood how my native country can have such wonderful cheese and dairy desserts but nothing else than industrial, plastic-tasty milk. Beurk!
I may be in the minority but I think it’s pretty good. Even the shelf stable stuff. I drink ecreme in my cereal and in the US the skim milk almost looks blue and tastes “thin.” Here it’s palatable. Sometimes I go to the milk machine and get the unpasteurized stuff from a local farmer but it goes bad in about a day. How’s German milk?
Almost as good as the American milk. It’s fresh milk, even if you can find UHT. However I agree that skim milk doesn’t taste. My favorite is the 2% (but the color codes are pretty confusing here!)