The French-English dictionary doesn't always have the answer

You say tomato, I say tomato.

If you don’t say it out loud, it sure seems like the same thing, right?

It took me a long time to find the equivalent of my favorite products from home in France.

First of all, I never found some of them.  Maybe some of you out there will be able to help me with that down the road.  Secondly, they’re never exactly the same, but you get used to it.

So, I’ve decided that there are so many things to discuss under this topic that I’ll need to split it up into weekly articles.  Are you as excited as I am?  Good.  So let’s get started.

So, today let’s talk yogurt, or ‘yaourt’ in French (I still don’t know how to spell that by the way).  You can generally find yogurt in the ‘cremerie’ aisle (crème/dairy), or with the deserts.

Take baby yogurt for example.  France is like the mecca of yogurt.  It takes up the same amount of space that snack food does in the States.  No, I take that back…the chip aisle.  And 99% of the yogurt in France totally fatty, made out of whole milk.  So, if you’re looking for light yogurt, you might find some.  The name of the two biggest fat-free or light yogurts are Taillefine and Sveltesse (couldn't find their website, sorry).  Anwyay, that’s not my point.

Yogurt in France is creamy and thick.  When my son was born, I fed him lots of yogurt.  I usually fed him the Dannon baby yogurt.  The stuff is creamy and delicious.  Then I went to the States to see my family when he was like 6 months old.  I searched and searched for baby yogurt.  99% of the yogurt section is fat-free.  And all of the yogurt is liquidy.  Even the baby yogurt that I found after like 10 minutes of roaming in the dairy aisle.  Why is that? 

To make a long story short, if you’re used to very liquid, fat-free yogurt, you can find it in France, but there aren’t a lot of products like that out there.  I suggest you get used to the creamy, delicious yogurt that France has to offer and deal with it!

This is Lindsay, signing out.