Now that our departure is a mere 19 days away, I have to admit that I haven’t actually managed to do much preparatory reading for our trip. I still have so many things to do before we go (mostly work-related), I am resigned to not having read as much as I might have liked.
A book I have read is Paris on a plate: a gastronomic diary by food critic and writer Stephen Downes (2006). (Yes, another Stephen Downes; before reading this book I only knew of this other Stephen Downes.)
Food critic Stephen Downes writes about the restaurant Chartier in Montmarte. One of their dishes is a tripe sausage, andouillette. The book describes it thus:
Well, it’s a sausage made mainly from the lower bowels of pigs.
‘Oh, gross!’ she says.
‘Now,” I say, ‘I’m going to split it, and you’ll see, if you look, a great many curls of bits of guts and other stuff tumble out into the plate. And you might smell something a little… “agricultural”? But don’t be alarmed. And you don’t have to watch. It’s kind of adult-rated food.’
I take my knife to the andouillette. Curls of gluey skin-pale guts spill out, and the characteristic gorgeous whiff of a shitty pigpen rises all by itself from the plate.
…
‘Oh my God!’ she says. ‘I can smell it… Oh my God! I can’t! You can’t eat that!’
I smile and shrug and eat, and the andouillette‘s inards are sensationally gluey and flavoursome and gelatinous.
(p.60)
Sounds interesting and gross at the same time, an acquired taste, I think. I don’t know if I’d be game to try it! Andouillette is definitely listed on Chartier’s current menu:
Andouillette de troyes aaaaa grillee frites 12.20 €
The “aaaaa” stands for Association Amicale des Amateurs d’Andouillettes Authentiques, which is an association that certifies the authenticity of the sausage (an association for sausage – the French must take this sausage very seriously!). Andouillette de troyes is from the town of Troyes. Grillee frites I think is chips. (Thank you Google!) Although almost everyone I’ve spoken to reckons my lack of French will not be a problem, I find myself really wishing I could speak the language. How am I going to decipher the menus?? Should I pack my copy of Le Répertoire de La Cuisine? Why oh why have I never learned any French?
Given that we will be staying in Montmarte it shouldn’t be too difficult to get to Chartier. It sounds like it’s a bit of an institution.
5 Comments
I can solve the lack of French – take me! LOL!
How exciting to be 19 days away 🙂
I wish I could Penny! 🙂 Have you ever eaten/smelt andouillette?
ME TOO. Je parle le bon francais, je l’ai lu dans un livre.
Seriously – say hi to Paris for me, please. And enjoy the andouillette.
Thanks for the link to my site Salut! and the piece I wrote there on the wonderful thing – with apologies to the more squeamish – that is the andouillette.
I am currently living out of France (in Abu Dhabi) but was delighted to find a perfectly decent andouillettes frites – Lyon not Troyes recipe – in the French style bistro at Novotel (all dining out is in hotels if you want wine). At least one of the supermarkets popular with expats has a pork section, rather discreetly located at the back of the shop, but no andouillettes there.
I realise not everyone would use the word “decent” in this context, but each to his/her own…
Not knowing what it was, I ordered Andouillette in Paris.
In a corner cafe of the Latin Quarter I was unpleasantly surprised when the sausage was brought to the table…the stench was pungently ronchy. The texture was so overly chewy it couldn’t have been meat…there was something else in my sausage…something I would find out to be pig colon later. I’m sure it can be enjoyed with an acquired taste of it, but it’s not for the unaware. :]