The brand-new English Debating Society held its first meeting on November 19, 1997, at the Esplanade Language Learning Center. The motion for debate, which was that " Real men don’t eat quiche " was brilliantly supported by Lauri Saarinen, 1st-year law student, by Florence Mourlon, 1st-year Political Science student, as well as by Florence Quenette and Arnaud Vagner, 3rd-year Political Science students. The motion was opposed with no less talent, fire and enthusiasm by Marie Baudet, Julien Blanc and Adeline Hinderer, respectively 1st- and second-year Political Science students as well as by Lauri Voionmaa, 1st-year law student.
Lauri Saarinen went back to Ancient Rome to find examples of genuine he-men and assured us that neither Hercules nor Caesar, real men if there ever were such, had ever even tasted something as obviously repulsive as quiche, a mere masquerade of real food. He described in graphic detail its appearance and feel, sending ripples of distate - and laughter - throughout the assembly.
For Florence Quenette, quiche being made of eggs (spherical), of cream (soft), of milk (white) and being round in and of itself, bespoke in the hapless and misguided creatures eating it a hidden desire to crawl back into their mothers’ wombs - hardly a manly aspiration in those so-called men. So she entreated every woman in the assembly to avoid ever feeding such a dish to their families, if only for the sake of keeping the country’s birthrate going.
Florence Mourlon chose a scientific approach. She conducted a survey among fellow bus-riders on her way to the Language Learning Center. Although a few respondents admitted to a taste for quiche, they only did so shamefacedly and after much prodding - which goes to show how despicable quiche is perceived to be. Most of the survey’s respondents merely shuddered at the mere mention of quiche. Florence then proceeded to demonstrate, diagram in hand, that quiche tended to bloat stomachs and more generally to interfere with virile efficiency, thus turning formerly perfectly normal men into ineffectual zombies.
Arnaud Vagner concluded this string of arguments by pointing out the political aspects of quiche-eating : because it involves sharing equal slices, it definitely smacks of the heinous crime known as egalitarianism and hence of the (no less heinous) crime known as Political Correctness. Hence he urged us to recover then and there our senses - as well as our political freedom.
These assertions of course did not go unchallenged from the opposition benches. Marie Baudet thus conjured up the image of the serene pater-familias handing out slices of quiche to his happy children while sipping cool beer. In a bold flight of fancy, she went on to draw an analogy between quiche, with its tough outercrust and soft filling, and men, who seem to be tough on the outside , but really have a deliciously crumbly inner self ...
Julien Blanc then rose to tell us everything we’d always died to know (but never dared to ask) about the recipe of quiche. Exhibiting the frozen quiche specimen he was going to eat for dinner, he insisted on its nutritiousness, going so far as to give a fascinated public a no less fascinating piece of evidence : quiche was precisely what enabled him to regain his strength between two dates ...
Adeline Hinderer adopted the historical point of view to demonstrate that quiche was so prized that Germany actually invaded Lorraine to snatch the recipe away from its rightful owners. Retaliatory action was taken, among which she singled out the defiant song, " Vous n’aurez pas l’Alsace et la Lorraine " and whose true lyrics, she said were : " Vous n’aurez pas l’Alsace et la quiche lorraine ".
Lauri Voionmaa had the final say : he rode his high moral horses and urged us, in impassioned and impressive tones, to see the light and save our souls by turning ourselves into the modern version of homo sapiens - homo quichianus, the apex of human evolution.
Yael Vias, 1st-year law student with Estelle Bacconnier and Véronique Brom, 1st-year Political Science students, made up the jury. They were faced with the arduous, near-impossible task of selecting the winning team and the best speaker. After lengthy deliberations, the proposition was declared to be the winner of the debate while Florence Quenette, also of the proposition team, won kudos for her speech.
