French Fridge

I live with a French man. This means I have a French Fridge.

This is not a particular chic brand of fridge. I only have the teeny tiny silver thing I bought from Argos when I thought 'sure I don't eat very much anyway'. Now that I eat A Whole Lot More and live with the bottomless pit of hunger (French Man) the fridge is under strain.

I've lived for years with Irish fridges. Irish fridges I know and understand, if not love. Irish fridges either contain

- a pint of milk, ketchup, three eggs, 6 rashers and enough beer to get an elephant drunk
- a horrible stench from the rotting carcasses of animals, out of date dairy products and silage (that was once the vegetables bought during the optimistic five a day promotion in Dunnes) and enough beer to get an elephant drunk

In either case I always knew what to do. Fridge type one, you got drunk, then made a fry to get over the hangover.

In fridge type two, you avoided the fridge until something crawled out and vomited on your feet, then you went and Dealt With It with a wheelbarrow and feckload of bleach.

A French Fridge is different. For starters, a French Fridge always stinks. Open a French Fridge and welcome to the Land of Ming. And inside will be a cornucopia of interesting, delicious, expensive but most of all Stinking food products.

Now, in an Irish fridge, you pretty much know what's 'off'. If it's been there for more than a week, it shouldn't be there. So then you leave it a month or nine, and eventually deal with it.

But in a French fridge you never know where you're at. Been there for 6 months and covered in blue mould? It's 'maturing'. Green streaked, dripping onto the peaches and stinking worse than Satan's maw? It might be 'ripe'. Big and hairy and almost able to crawl out of the meat drawer? That's probably some kind of fifty year old French sausage. And you better smile with pleasure when he's popped a bit of that in your mouth.

Sigh. I am an Irish woman. I live with a French man. And although he speaks English, drinks Bushmills and eats potato bread, our Fridge is most definitely French.