How the British invented France

Le Rosbif Writes: The French crow insufferably about their culture - but the British were responsible for much of it, says Anthony Peregrine


I like and value the French. I married one and fathered two, so don’t have much choice in the matter. But they can be damned annoying. At a French dinner the other evening, we were talking drinks. A very presentable fellow told me: “The Scots invented whisky only because they couldn’t get hold of cognac. There was a war on. Supplies were cut off.”
He wasn’t sure which war but thought it had been in the 17th-century. “Or eighteenth.” “You’re certain of this?” I said. “Oh yes,” he said. “It’s in books.” The French do such low-level, daily (and often bonkers) chauvinism as, by and large, the British do not. They routinely assume that, given the chance, everyone would live in France, be French, eat French food, drink French brandy, watch French films, climb French mountains and listen to Daft Punk.
With self-deprecation seared into our souls, we are ill-equipped to reply. But we should. Otherwise, the French will grow even more insufferable, which is in no-one’s interest. So, as the great spring surge across the Channel revs up, let me furnish a few hints - elements of the French self-image which they crow about but which we invented. Please mention them as often as necessary:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/france/10677375/How-the-British-invented-France.html

That is ridiculous     
All 4 things have nothing to do with Britain.

the English was just just heating ingredients to eat before the French taught them to cook.   

Fun fact -- all modern wine owes a great deal of debt to ... Texas:

A debt of honor is owed to Texas by wine producers all over the world – or rather, to a particular Texan grapevine breeder. During the late 1800s, Thomas Volney Munson established a vineyard, which he ran both for his own studies and also as a commercial nursery. It was here that he grafted European Vitis vinifera vine scions onto native American rootstocks, creating the first truly workable solution to the phylloxera crisis. At that time, the sap-sucking pest was laying waste to vineyards in Europe and across the world, and no solution had been found. In recognition of Munson's achievements, the French government made him a Chevalier (knight) of the Ordre du Mérite Agricole (Order of Agricultural Merit).

http://www.wine-searcher.com/regions-texas