Surviving America 095: Frances Culinary Arts & The Shoulders of Giants

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil. The future has already arrived. Welcome into Surviving America, PBM family. France is under siege. And I thought we'd take this moment in time to discuss one of the great contributions of French culture to the world, and that is the culinary arts, of course. Right? The culinary arts, of course, and I arrived here, well, largely because of my background and ability to talk about it. From the time I was probably about 15, 14-ish years old, I knew I was going to be a chef, and I went to culinary arts school and did all the things, all the way up Up into becoming a chef. And I found out that the life of a chef is a sacrificial entity or undertaking rather. That probably wasn't going to work well with family and kids. And that was when my career as a chef came to an end. Right before I got into baby making. But there is a long and storied history. of the culinary arts that is born out of French culture. There's a lot of beautiful things born out of French culture. I'm bringing it up because we're watching it under siege. We're all wondering the same thing. Is this it? Right? Now remember, this is a nation who's survived a lot, so the idea that the French might be stamped out is kind of hard for me to believe, even though we have a bit of a psychotic generation of French people who, and British and German, but I don't think they make up the majority in all honesty. I don't think these people make up the majority. I think they're college kids who've been indoctrinated to believe that Western civilization is, you know, a colonizing threat to all the world. Western civilization. I guess we probably should start with that. I see it bandied about in social media as... It's most simplistic and sort of 2020's explanation is white culture. Right? I see it talked about as white culture. And there's this funny sort of question or quest going on around the internet right now. And it is to define what is white culture. What is white culture? People ask on their YouTube videos and their TikToks. And they ask, what is white culture? Like, what even is it? Sometimes it's to dismiss white people. Sometimes it's to prop up white people. Whatever. It's this sort of game, this trend that people are doing. And I was listening to the Second Story YouTube channel, which I love. It's a woman who does literary works, concepts, ideas around writing, reading, literacy at large, books, characters within books, that kind of stuff. And... She was talking about the classics, right? The classics of literature. I don't want to go into it, but I think she defined Western civilization sort of in the best way that anyone could do it. I think it was really the best possible way to define it. And it was the old concept of standing on the shoulders of giants, right? Right? It was the old concept that we, Western civilization, what it does better than most, and I think what really defines it is that we build off of our history. We notate our history and have for a long, long time, right? We learn from one another. You can see that in like the Roman and the Greek relationship, right? You got the Romans and the Greeks who fought it out. But even after the Romans won, I mean, they had the same gods. They read the same classics, if you will, right? They understood the value of information. And they understood how important it was to build on what the Greek civilization had done. So then the Romans built on that and so on and so forth until you get to the modern age. And you can still see echoes of that, you know, Roman building techniques in modern architecture. Maybe not modern architecture anymore because it's all cement slab, but you know what I'm saying. And I really think that kind of defines what we are and what makes Western civilization great and also what makes it dominant and what makes it so successful is that we're not sitting here reinventing the wheel every single time we come up with a new idea. Right? We have greats. We have geniuses. We have stable successful sort of uh basis to build off of and i think it's important that you understand that and it's so important because first of all that's hard to erase right so the idea that western civilization will somehow it's it's been there's been an attempt to cover up the greatness of Western civilization for a long time. Probably my whole life. I was just unaware of it as a little kid. There was a, you know, a movement to push forward artists and writers and scholars who were, you know, just for the nature of adding some color to the palette, if you will. It's a funny way to say it. Right? Like, we couldn't be satisfied with the fact that the greats, The great thinkers of Rome, right? The great early thinkers who basically spent their time rationalizing and thinking about the best ways to make a society great. The best ways to build on a society. The things that a society needs. The things that a man needs. The things that a government needs, right? These are guys who, they didn't have TikTok. They didn't have, you know what I mean? They had nothing else to do but to think about these problems. And they did. And they built masterworks from their thought that are referenced today and used today and built into our own constitution some 2,000 years later, right? And you've got to understand, like, this is not– it's amazing. And it's not the fault of anybody else who came on after them. But the idea that we can socially engineer sort of a new set of– There will be new artists, new creators, new authors, new scientists, new philosophers, all that kind of stuff. But we've got to stop looking at it as like, who's better? It's a silly sort of mentality. Who's number one? Who's number two? Who's number three? We have to take the color out of it, the black, white, brown, whatever, take the religion out of it, and understand that your faith, Your forefather is who he is, right? Like in terms of psychology, like, you know, Freud is your forefather. That is what it is. It doesn't matter if you like him. It doesn't matter if you want to be considered better than him. It doesn't matter if you want to socially engineer someone who's better than him. It'd be no different than you looking at your great-great-grandfather and saying like, I want to be his great-great-grandfather. You know what I mean? Like, that's not how it works. It's a lineage. It's a lineage that connects us all. And the fundamental difference between it is in Western civilization, we invite everyone to be a part of that lineage, right? You go to Japan and you say, like, I want to be a great Japanese writer and you look like me. They're going to go, oh, well, that's funny. That's funny, you and foreigner. Now, go home back to America and do your writing thing, but you're not here to be a part of our lineage of Japanese culture. That's not it. That's not how it works. Right? And I don't fault them for it. I don't care. I do not care about supremacy. I can tell you that right now. If there's a culture out there that finds itself to be supreme and thinks itself supreme and teaches its children that, you know what, you were born into this supreme culture and that's it. And here's the proof and here's the reason why we're great. And here's why you will be great. And you have all this at your back and all of this wind in your wings to be great and to do great. And the world will benefit from it. If we could get a little less afraid of the word supremacy, I think all races would get along a lot better. You know what I mean? I really do. And this brings us back to the French. This brings us back to the French and the culinary arts and the standing on the shoulders of giants mentality that is Western civilization. It brings us to Carême, the king of chefs and the chef of kings. This is how he claimed himself, right? Antoine Carême, mid-1700s, the first guy to really start to notate in a big way How a Kitchen Worked, Recipes at Large. He documented the first four essential... mother sauces, the veloute, the espagnole, the bechamel milk-based sauce, and another one that's lost to history, basically a beurre blanc, pretty much. And he was the guy who Escoffier gets all the credit, kind of, but he was sort of the man who began that. Escoffier took his base, took the base built by Antoine Carême, added sort of a military brigade-style hierarchy to the kitchen to make it even more efficient and more effective, and he also built a discipline there. Escoffier built a militaristic discipline. Auguste Escoffier, probably the most noted... Probably the most well-known or at least the most noted chef for contributions to the modern age of cooking, right? And the modern kitchen makeup. You know, chef, sous-chef, garde-manger, you know, sauté chef, sauces, the whole thing. The whole sort of hierarchy of how the kitchen works. Veg, meats, the whole thing, the breakdowns. pastry chef, the whole, you know, every position having its sort of unique duties. That was built by Escoffier. Carême had one of my favorite lines of all time. He said, the charcoal kills us all. That's what he said, because they used to run giant, if you can imagine. You know what I mean? The kitchen of yore was nothing like the modern kitchens. And they used to run these great racks around that were heated by charcoal. So the kitchen was just, you know, it was just a mess. It was a mess of fumes and toxic air. And he said, the charcoal kills us all. Oh well, the shorter the life, the greater the glory. I mean, this guy was something in the 1700s, you know what I mean? The chef of kings and the king of chefs. He was something, and he was. I mean, he was Alexander the Tsar, Alexander the First Chef. He was a lot of great leaders. I don't remember all their names, but France, the UK, Russia, they all would have Kerem show up and cook their most important meals. He was the man. He was the man. And like I said, he established that first sort of... He established that first sort of situation, that first base on which Auguste Descoffier could build his kitchen brigade and his hierarchy. And then on which, you know, subsequent chefs, Verge after him and so on and so forth, could build what become the modern kitchen today. This is everything. You know what I mean? This is everything. This is how the whole, this is what's at risk. This is why when you see cathedrals burning, you understand. Even though you don't understand, you understand. We're losing something here of value. Years ago, we watched ISIS knocking over ancient relics and them crumbling. We understood. We were losing something here. Valuable. You know what I mean? Even if you don't understand the value of it, you understand that it's valuable. And when I watch France in its situation that it's in right now, I can't help but be drawn back to what has come out of French cookery and the culinary arts and how it's spread across the entire world and improved life for everyone, even home cooking in itself, right? You got guys like Jacques Pepin and who was the woman? Who was the woman who talked funny like this? What was her name? I keep wanting to say Martha, but it's not. Maria? No. I don't know who it was, but she was great. She took these French techniques. Well, this is how fundamentally different and how the fundamental change that occurred under Karem in the late 1700s. Food was totally different in terms of what a plate looked like. Karem started with a more time intensive presentation, a more beautified presentation. But what he also did is created a focus on meat. He took meat and put it at the center of the plate. He took meat and made it the focal point of a dish. And it was because of its rarity in those days. And because of the, you know, the fact that it was news, it was, it was lavish, this idea that like, we're not going to, stew them a little bit of meat up and spread it out within a dish we're not going to create a cassoulet of beans that has sparse bits of meat in it because we don't have a lot of meat meat's expensive right we're going to take a cut of meat a big cut of meat and stick it on a plate and put a beautiful sauce over it right and then the vegetables and the beans and those kinds of things that the starches they will be sort of side players how we eat today right Where we have this big lump of something protein on the plate and then two sides and whatever else. This is all changed. This was changed by him. This was changed through the concept of cooking for kings, right? I'm going to be cooking for a czar. So, yeah, you know, we're going to have all the best meats. And this literally, like, you have to understand, this is not just a flex, right? This changed society at large. This created demand from regular people to say, like, well, I want to eat like a king. How can we get more protein available? I want to have a whole roast chicken at the center of my table for my family, right? And it really did enhance the quality of life. It probably enhanced overall health, right? I know people like to harken back to Mediterranean diets and that kind of thing. They ate a lot of fish, though, so they had center-of-the-plate protein, too. But boosting protein, the amount of protein on a plate, I have no doubt increased the health, particularly of growing kids and that kind of thing. It's an essential. It is the essential builder of your body. There's no getting around it. You're low on protein, you're going to have all kinds of problems. too much protein you're going to kill your kidneys now that's the that's the dirty secret that they don't tell you when they talk about a carnivore diet i'm gonna eat steaks all every day of my life right yeah okay well however long your life is you might do that but eventually your body's gonna be like dude please slow it down slow it my mother used to say all things in moderation jim a woman who drank herself to death right my mother was she was like possessed by wisdom. She really was. She was possessed by wisdom. She was a woman who knew everything. She knew all the right moves to make, but she never made any of them. It was, she was a very interesting woman, man. Incredible. Someone who grew up very rough and I think learned all the hard lessons, but couldn't shake them herself. You know what I mean? But she would always say that all things in moderation, Jim. And that's, you know, I look at all the diets, all the science, all everything, everything comes out. You know what I mean? All these things come out over time and You look at the data and you watch it swing this way to Atkins and this way to high fat and low fat and no fat to high fat and no meat to high meat. And what you find at the end of the day is, you know, all things in moderation. And then my father in my other ear. So my mother would say all things in moderation. My father would say avoid the sugar and the salt. The salt I don't avoid. I don't listen to him on that. And we eat salt like crazy. But I've never ate a lot of sugar. And I think those things have a lot to do with where I'm at right now at 40 years old and, you know, feeling phenomenal every day. Every day phenomenal. So, so rare. Like, anyhow. So, well, let's run a quick ad and then we'll come back and we'll talk about the modern kitchen. Because I think it's important. The modern kitchen is a reminder that What we're trying to do can happen. What we're trying to do with diversity can exist. It can happen. All right, right back. Your prescription is ready. Oh, you don't have a prescription? This is not you back up antibiotics, medlazine, amoxicillin. Are you sure? Doxycycline? You don't have backup antibiotics. Well, here's the good news. SurvivalScripts.com has a brand new website. You can get all the backup antibiotics you might need. They also have an incredible new add-on section. Don't leave this up to chance. Visit SurvivalScripts.com today. PBN family, we are back. I want you to take a journey with me. Okay? A journey with me up I-95 North. Up I-95 North early in the morning. No coffee. No coffee yet. I don't drink coffee yet. I'm 18. And I'm heading to the Walnut Hill College. The restaurant school at Walnut Hill College in West Philadelphia. And I've learned that taking the train sucks. So I'm driving my 92 Oldsmobile Green with a broken door into West Philly. And I'll park it on a side street. And I'll head into class. And depending on the night, I'll work at one of the restaurants in the restaurant school itself as part of our college experience. Or I'll go stage, i.e. work for free at the Striped Bass with Christopher Lee. Or I met Alfred Portale, which was really cool. Or I'll go work at Alameda Cuba. My real job. My actual job. My job where I work four 10-hour nights and... And I'm off three days. And it's the best existence of all time when it comes to work. Four 10-hour days is as magic as it gets. And, you know, I want to hear something. This is how silly a man I am. This is how silly a man I am. I want you to understand this. I don't have a boss. You know what I mean? Well, my wife. But she's not very bossy. The bills are my boss, really, basically. The mortgage is my boss. But I could work four 10-hour days. I probably work six 10-hour days, to be quite honest with you. But I could work four 10-hour days and have three days off and just say that's my schedule. But we're not there yet. We're just not quite there yet. Maybe one day we'll get back to those four 10s. I want to talk about Alameda, Cuba in particular. I could tell you about my college friends in culinary school. I was the guy in culinary school. You know what I mean? I was the guy with the most experience. I was the guy who really loved it probably more than anybody else. And I was the best in my class. You know what I mean? And it was because I went to Vo-Tech the last two years of high school. And all my free time was spent reading books. I spent all my free time. Largely, I had no video games. I had nothing else to do except girlfriend. And I spent all my time reading culinary arts books, whether they were stories, you know, like like biographies and that kind of thing or literal recipe books. So it was just me. I was just completely, you know, wrapped up in this whole thing. And it was a great time. It was I was on fire with passion for this. And it was great. And it's one of the best skills, if not the greatest skill you can learn. I don't know that there is a skill that will serve you more in life than learning how to cook for yourself really well. Learning how to cook really well for yourself. The problem is people don't know how to do it. And I know I owe you the SHTF chef. And we will get there. Some projects take time, PBN family. And I'm sorry that this one has taken so much time. But I will teach you how to cook in video form exactly how I learned how to cook in video form. Well, in person. It all starts with knife skills. And this is the part that most people... People miss a lot of things in cooking. Two of the biggest things that they miss are knife skills, number one. In other words, how do I use different knives? How do I process different things? How do I process... Look at the vegetable and produce section. How do you process those? How do you use a knife to break those down? How do you break a turnip, an onion, a celery, and a carrot all down to the same size? This is the product of knife skills. How do I peel? Everything has to be the same size if we're going to cook it to the doneness that it needs to be. The other thing people don't study, you could get a recipe. People go direct to recipes. It's fine. They buy machines that cut stuff for them or they use knives and they cut themselves up. I don't know. But the other important one, the second most important really, is cooking methods. What are the cooking methods? What are the proper cooking methods, right? Should I take this flounder and throw it on the grill? Probably not, right? It's probably not the best cooking method for that. You could delicately poach it. You could certainly saute it very quickly. But looking at a piece of meat, even at a wedge of squash, looking at anything and saying, not only how do I want to cook this, but what are some of the best ways to cook it? Almost everything has more than one way to cook. But what are the best ways to cook this? I probably don't want to stew my acorn squash for six hours or it's just going to be acorn mush. So learning the cooking methods and learning the knife skills will be the first thing we do together in the SHTF Chef so that you can learn how to cook properly. Because there's a freedom in cooking that exists nowhere else in life because there's nothing that you do three times a day, like clockwork, that you have to do that you can own completely. You can own this experience completely. You can just say, you can walk into it. When you learn how to cook, you learn the cooking methods, you learn how to prepare fish and all meats, right? Whether they're cheap meats or expensive meats, you learn how to prepare all these things. What cooking methods to use, how long, what to add, flavors to mix, all this kind of stuff. All of a sudden, you walk into a supermarket or into a farmer's market and you go like... It's like Neo. You're like Neo seeing the matrix for what it is. You're like, okay, this plus this plus this equals this. I can take this and do this. This is on sale, so I can add this. And it's just... It's a way better life than... What am I going to make for dinner? What am I going to make for... What am I going to make for... I don't know how to do that. I have four dishes that I rifle through to survive, right? If not, I'm spending $ 1, 000 a month to eat out. That level of... Yeah, it's just one of the most underrated skills of all. Like the idea that a man, that a grown man, all the things that a grown man can be, all the things that a grown man is, all the things that an alpha male can be or however you want to define the modern, you know, like top level male or whatever. All the things that you can learn to do and the idea that the best thing for a man to do is to find a woman that can cook for him, it's bananas. It's bonkers. It makes no sense whatsoever. What do you mean? Why? You know, it's really weird. It's a really weird idea to me. You know what I mean? I've been cooking for myself forever, long before I met the woman I was going to marry. And it just, it always seemed to fit. It just seemed to make sense. It was fun. It was, you know what I mean? And it was my life. It was my, literally, you are what you eat. This is ancient Epicurean culture. Epicurious. You know what I mean? Like literally a quote from Epicurious. Ancient. You are what you eat. Well, I'll just leave that up to whatever fine lady I cross paths with. Nothing wrong with having a lady that can cook. That's great. You know, share in the fun. But like... Learn how to cook for yourself, man. Seriously. Start today. Start today. But anyway, I walk into the kitchen... What time did I get to work? It's hard for me to remember. I know I finished college and had to hop on the R2 and fly down to Center City on the subway before subways were infested with the mentally ill. You could ride a subway train. It was no big deal. You'd run into some homeless, but they weren't dancing around with hammers. Fly down to Center City, get out, walk up from literal Center City, walk up to the alleyways of Walnut and Chestnut. And just watch people in the hustle and bustle, you know what I mean? Watch the beautiful people of Philadelphia, Center City, make their way to their highfalutin jobs, whatever they did. People dressed incredibly nice on Walnut and Chestnut around that time. I guess it was about three-ish, probably, something like that. I'd grab this gigantic metal tray, huge, brassier, giant, Like the size of probably your trash can lid, if not a little bigger. If you have one of those square trash cans, it was more of a rectangle. But I'd grab this giant trash can lid-sized metal bin. And I'd begin to fill it. And I'd fill it with all things. Tons of fresh parsley, red onions, cilantro, basil, fresh-squeezed lime juice, fresh-squeezed orange juice, lemon juice. I'd grab rice. I'd measure out rice downstairs. See, everything was in the basement. giant rats, the size of cats down in the basement, giant, but not a lot. It wasn't like a lot, but if you were there late night, you might come across one and scare the shit out of you. Um, but anyway, the rice and everything that you needed for the day of prep, I'm trying to go over a little shot of, uh, You know what? I think I kept the chicken livers upstairs actually. You'd grab all your goodies. Put them in your giant brassiere and head upstairs. And by this time, you know the clock is running, baby. The clock is running. You're going to do 400 covers tonight. 350, 400 on a weeknight. It's a lot of work. You know what I mean? And prep time was, I think we started at like 5 or 4.30 dinner. I can't remember what it was. But you only had about an hour or two, something along that. And I came to work late oftentimes, so I was behind the eight ball. And I'd get in there and I'd be slicing and under the pressure and looking at the clock and everybody being there talking. Everybody would be doing the same thing because we'd all be rushing to get ready for dinner. Chiffonade of basil, chiffonade of parsley, chimichurri, stir it up, mix it, give it to the chef. Make your sauces, make your crab salads, make all these different things. And prepare yourself for the night. prepare yourself for the night you know what i mean that was to come and in that great hustle and bustle i'd be standing you know honduras to my right mexico was my buddy albania to my left a a young american girl was work we usually worked saute veg when i worked grill veg we would stand next to each other the conversations we'd have were unbelievable by the way i remember having a I can't even repeat the thing she was saying on the air. It's crazy. But it's just one of those at-work conversations where you wind up talking about subjects that you can't even believe people talk about. Right? And, you know, just, oh, really? Oh, man, sorry. And then back to work. You know? Funny. But we existed in this world, in this restaurant world, where, you know, downstairs you had women who were undeniably illegal aliens spoke no english whatsoever juiced they juiced lemons and diced onions for the whole of the morning limes lemons all kinds of citrus did all kinds of prep work uh they were basically our prep chefs and then they left they'd be pulling out uh as we were pulling in for work you know what i mean and i can tell you this Aside from the Albanian Muslim, of course, from giving me shit about eating pigs once. There was never issues that were racial. Never. There was never issues that had anything to do with politics. Never issues about race. Never issues about ethnicity. About countries. You know, America's terrible. None of that. Like I said, the only guy who ever gave me a problem was the Albanian Muslim. Who said, Jimmy, I can't believe you eat the pigs. You're smart. And I can't believe you eat the pigs because they eat their babies. And I said, okay, well, on that note, I'm going to eat some more of this incredible, what was that rice called? The sad thing about the poor Albanian fellow, though, I do sympathize for him because he had to make this. It's not called chicharron. It was called, I can't remember the name. I'm sorry. It was this unbelievable rice that we used to make. And the way he started it, I mean, he must have hated it. But the way you started it is with onions, diced ham, and bacon. Onions, diced ham, and bacon in the pan. Rice, saffron. And then you brought that up to a simmer. And you let that thing rock. And you cooked the rice until it was done. And then you folded in giant pinto beans. And that was it. And it was, I mean, fantastic. It was amazing. We'd heat it up in a pan. We'd add some fresh parsley. We'd stick it in a little dish to shape it like a tubular shape. And then it would go out onto the plate with these gigantic cuts of pork. I mean, just this pork that we cooked. We slow cooked the pork in pork fat. Yeah. And then we would throw it back in the oven. Right? So it would be slow cooked. My mouth is watering. I'm sorry. Because I can remember the taste of it like yesterday. Okay. It would come out. It would be super tender. And then you'd get an order for it and you would throw it back in the oven and crisp it. And it would all get all crispy. Boom. We used those saw. This restaurant in particular used those saw knives that people use to cut up the turkey. I don't even know what they're called. I've never owned one. You know what I'm talking about though, right? They have like a hacksaw blade that runs back and they're real loud. We cut the pork up with that. And then it went out with a sour orange mojito on top of it, right? So like diced onion, sliced cilantro, parsley, sour orange. What the hell else went in that thing? Olive oil right over top of the pork. Oh, it was, I mean, just the food from Alma de Cuba was unreal. It was the fanciest, best food you could get. You know what I mean? There's like a line between fancy and sustaining food, like food that's, Real fancy and artistic, but also still delicious. There's a line, right? You get too fancy schmancy. Like I'd go to the Striped Bass and work for free because the chef was great and I wanted it on my resume. And I learned, I mean, I learned unbelievable things there. But like you'd go there and the food was a piece of artwork. There was a process before you began to plate a dish where you would wipe the entire dish down with a wet towel. Not a towel, but like a disposable towel. You would wipe the entire dish down from corner to corner. This was step one. You couldn't plate anything until you did this. If you got caught not doing this, your ass was grass. So you would create a canvas, step one. And then everything was so artfully presented. It was breathtaking. You get a dish there, it's breathtaking to look at. But you were eating things that didn't make sense. And this eventually would kick me out of fine dining. You know what I mean? I loved this. Don't get me wrong. You couldn't have told me different. But I love this. But after a while, it sort of started to get to me. I started to say to myself, you know, I really do love going home and eating mom's chicken and dumplings more than, more than like a, well, here's a great example. A citrus quote unquote salad, right? A citrus salad on one of the plates. It's the striped bass was segments that you would segment limes and you would segment blood oranges and you would segment tangerine, regular oranges. And you would line those segments in this really beautiful, colorful pattern down one side of the plate. And then you would take some microgreens, dress them up with, I don't know what it was. It was probably the same dressing that was on the tuna tartare that it was served with. So a ginger lime dressing. And you would stick it on top of these segments, you know. And I went there to eat and I took my wife there because I was very proud to be working there. And, you know, even though she didn't give a shit about fine dining, she would come with me and suffer it. And I remember eating the segments of lime and going like, why am I eating a lime segment right now? But whatever, I was in love, so it didn't matter, right? But after a while, those things started to grow on me, you know what I mean? Or started to grate me a bit. And I'd be like, what is this that we're doing? You know what I mean? Why are we eating segments of citrus and calling it a fine dining meal? Why are we eating microgreens on top of everything? Do I have to have a micro... Can I get a salad? Why do I have to have micro basil and micro everything? But yeah, at the time, man, I was on fire for it all. It was great. It was wonderful. It was a magic thing and it was all born out of Antoine Carême. It was all born out of Antoine Carême. Then it was built on by Escoffier. And then all the chefs that I idolized growing up and some that I worked for built on top of that. And when you see what's happening in France, what's happening in England, what's happening in America in some places, when you see attacks on Western civilization at large, when you see attacks on what it is we've built, this is why it hurts. This is why it stings. This is why people get their fur up. This is probably why the Republicans are going to do a lot better than you think in the midterm elections. Because inherently we understand. An attack on France, right? Like what we're seeing right now, which is an attack. It's an attack from its own people. It's an attack from within. It's an attack from without. It's an attack from the world at large. It's an attack from people who are true idiots. And I don't care how much billions of dollars or trillions of dollars they've amassed. I don't care how much political power they have. I don't care how much influence they have or what great, brilliant trades they've made in the stock market or against other countries' currencies. To attack Western civilization is the most idiotic thing you can do. It's the most foolish thing you can do. You look around the world, you see the great advancements of the world, you know where they came from, right? You know where they will come from. They're all built, again, we all stand on the shoulders of giants. And that's exactly what we concern ourselves with. With France. We understand. And that's why I think France will prevail in something like this. Because you're not. In order to destroy France. It's not about. The. It's not about destroying Notre Dame. It's about destroying things that exist in the psyche of everyone's brain, in the upbringing, in the way that people live all over the world thanks to Western values, thanks to government structure, thanks to societal structure, societal norms that were born out of these giants of thought. An attack on Western civilization like we're seeing wherever the origin is from. I've heard a lot about a Chinese man. I've heard a lot about Soros. I've heard a lot about a lot of things. We all know the conquistadors of the Middle East. But it's an attack on all of us. It's the utilization of the ignorant youth because they're too young and their parents failed them in telling them that they come from a great lineage and a great stock and a supreme culture. a supreme base of thought at large, right? A supreme civilization. You cannot argue the fact that the West has changed the world in so many great ways, it's hard to even understand it all. I just spent 40 minutes telling you about one tiny thread, the culinary arts, born out of Western civilization, that has improved the way of life for so many people all over the country. I mean, when you hear... About Japan wanting to eat more meat. China wanting to eat more meat. Oh, they want more red meat. They like eating steak. This is Antoine Carême. This was born out of his concept. He changed the culture of eating altogether. Now, there were people that came after him who made it possible, right? You know, who made that meat available. But it was his concept of, you know, this is how kings eat. I'm the chef of kings and the king of chefs. To attack Western civilization is to cut your own ankles off. It's to cut your feet off. It's to cut the nose off to spite the face. And that's what I wanted to talk about today on Surviving America. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed the diatribe and the culinary arts talk and all of that. Do me a favor and share this episode. 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