Wok, Woc or Woque?

During one of the meetings of the Amicale de Cormatin concerning the yearly Loto, a decision had to be made which prizes were going to be bought for the lottery. The chairman of the Amicale produced a catalogue of the hypermarché “Carrefour”, and announced which prizes he had in mind for this event. The secretary kept record of prizes and prices. Somewhere around the first prize of the sixth round something went wrong. Monsieur G. read out “wok, € 39”, and the company went quiet. A number of people looked at each other, and the secretary finally asked “How does one spell that word?”. The French may be renowned for their gastronomy, but when it comes to international cuisine in Burgundy, a Vietnamese or North African restaurant, or a kebab shop, is about the limit of how exotic foreign cooking is around here. For most of those present a wok was something completely unknown and how to write it, wok, wock, woc, woq or woque, was a mistery to them. Fortunately there was one person who knew what it was, and Madame B. was not unwilling share this information. Stir frying obviously did not rank high in her cooking skills, because she happily explained that she had an electric wok, once won in a local lottery, and that she only used the thing to ..... cook large quantities of sauerkraut. And although sauerkraut is an Alsatian specialty, served with big quantities of meat, such as streaky bacon, pork and sausages, it is around here also a very popular winter dish. I am convinced that my Chinese Singaporean friends would laugh their head of if they ever found out to what purpose a wok is used around here.

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