1. Technology and Food in a Larger Context
Alright, so before we begin, I have a few questions.
Who here, is a French speaker?
Who here has kids? Was anyone fairly recently a kid?
By: Natalie Chabot

5. Have students compare restaurants from your target language and American culture
McDonalds can actually be a decent starting point.
It’s easy for students to relate to
There are a lot of menu similarities with a few “quirky items” from the target culture.
Food descriptions can actually be a little insight on how other cultures view America

6. McDonalds breakfast Menu: France Vs. America
In France, the Double Quarter Pounder is called the McTasty because the a quarter of a pound isn’t a unit of measurement that exists. Notice the differences in the menu. France is very bread and grains based, while the US uses a lot of cheese and meats in between American type breads.

7. McDonald’s Commercial

8. McDonald’s Commercial U.S.

9. USA vs. France
“I’m Lovin’ It” VS. “Venez Comme Vous Êtes” (Come as you are)
Although the slogans are very different, the commercials are actually fairy similar. They both are very people focused and stress getting to everyone who is cool to go to them.
Students could do a comparison between the videos.
The French love food. It’s almost sacred to them. McDonald’s in France was a struggle for a while. The big market there is focused on tourism simply because this isn’t the type of food that people are used to eating on a regular basis. Therefore, by going with a slogal such as « come as you are », the French were trying to create an environment that is open and friendly and that appeals to alost anyone. One in which you don’t have to put effort into getting dressed and the meal won’t take 2 hours to complete.

10. In France and La Martinique
The style of food changes based on the country. Also, colonized French countries tend to have menus similar to that of France. This food specificially is made of two steak patties, bacon, seasonal mushrooms, local lettuce, relish and garlic sauce.
The Maestro Gruyère

11. McDonald’s in Morocco
In Morocco, McDonald’s also takes care to meet the religious requirements of the food. McDonald’s takes several precautions when preparing food. Halal basically means that it was prepared under Muslim law.

12. This also takes place in Morocco. The food options vary greatly as well. There are fried bell peppers, goat cheese wraps, fish balls, fried gouda and pepper balls, etc.

13. What people actually think of McDonald’s
This could be a fun cultural activity for the students. While the video may be incredibly difficult for them to understand with the speed that he talks, it is still a YouTube video geared at young folks. Simply because of this, they will be able to pick up on the sarcasm in his voice and at least a few of the jokes. Considering the video doesn’t show McDonald’s in a positive light, it could work well for them. Students could also be given guided notes to try and fill out while watching the video. Now, this is a task that could be very hard for students simply based on how quickly he speaks.If you were to use something like this, it would be smart to give a quick explaination of what it is that he is talking about and why he is talking about them. For example, he’s French. He doesn’t fully understand the concept of McDonald’s because he’s French. He also spends a lot of time complaining about the customers and how people stand in lines. He talks about how often he goes there and how he always ends up in the slowest lines. It doesn’t matter if he changes to a shorter line, he’s always behind people who order in incredibly large quantities. There are also two types of people who buy from McDonald’s, those who know what they are doing and those who think the weight of the world depends on them. He also talks about how for somereason the food he sees on the advertisements never look like the ones on his plate and he always asks himself what happened to them. Also, potatos always end up directly in the fries without going into the fryer like as if they were tryig to escape. The last McDonald’s mystery is those who take an entire handful of napkins.

14. What are guided notes?
They are notes with blanks in them that students have to fill out as they watch a video, or listen to a lecture.

15. So this is an example with experiment directions
So this is an example with experiment directions. But what you do is you listen to the videos and pick out important statements and then remove some of the words and leave a blank for the students to fill out as they go through it. So after the students fill this out to the best of their abilities. This could then lead to a classroom discussion on their answers and the cultural perspectives of McDonald’s from the French point of view.

16. What does fast food look like in France?

17. Fast food in France La Boîte à Pizza: https://www.laboiteapizza.com/
What could this say about the French culture? This is the 1st pizza delivery place!!! And it isn’t even old! This once again ties back to the rituals that come along with food in France. Even though this is delivery pizza, it’s almost comical that the pizza is gourmet.

18. Fast food in France: The Kebab
This is about as close to fast food France gets without having American fast food. The comical part is that this is actually classical Turkish cuisine but it does better in Frence for 2 reasons. The first is that it is Turkish and not American, and the French tend to not have the best opinion of Americans. The second is that it has the perception of being more Fresh because customers can watch it be made in front of them and the meat is shaved off of the lamb in front of their eyes.

19. Fast Food in Canada: Tim Hortons
How much different is Canada really than the United States? When compared to Dunkin Donuts, it’s not a big difference. Although some will claim otherwise.
Tim Hortons is kind of a joke to Americans, but it is the pride and joy of Canada. That’s also probably another reason that Tim Hortons is made fun of so much by Americans. Either way, this is the #1 place that Canadians go for a quick breakfast in the mornings. McDonald’s once in an attempt to understand why Tim Hortons was always outperforming them during the breakfast rush so they conducted an experiment. They conducted a blind taste test and McDonald’s faired better. However, once they reintroduced the labels, Tim Hortons took the lead.

20. Tim Hortons vs. Dunkin Donuts
Buzz feed? It’s a really big thing on the internet. Anyone who is anyone knows about buzz feed. They also have a lot of specials from different countries.

21. Fast food in Canada: St-Hubert’s
The closest thing to American food is Chick-fil-A, but that’s only at the express stores.
Canada still really values and cherishes the experience of food in Quebec, likely because of its strong ties and origines in France. St-Hubert’s is a very popular Canadian food place and in the true form of the restaurant, they offer both an express option as well as a sit down option. It’s a way of creating a nice, hybrid of fast food and sit down food.

22. Make a menu! Create your own menu with the Monoprix app.
What desserts would you have? What main dish?
This is an app that students can access from their phones if they so choose. It’s a really neat app that allows people to access recipes, sales, and make grocery lists. This is really similar to our Target app that exists here in the states. It’s an app that lets you look up products as well as see prices.

23. On the app, students can easily choose what meal they are looking
On the app, students can easily choose what meal they are looking. Once they click on a meal, they can then then swipe on their phone until they found a recipe that loooks appealing to them. These recipes are programmed through the Monoprix website so that every single ingredient in the recipe correlates with the websites. Students can make menus using these recipes and even practice grocery shopping.

24. What can you do with that?
Once recipes are found using the Monoprix app, students can access the grocery store and shop for the groceries online.
This website has groceries on it that they could shop for. They can compare prices between brands, you can give them a budget and they have to make a dinner under that budget, there are lots of possibilities with this.

25. Links