The Year of Eating Promiscuously

Among the best bits of advice I’ve received since arriving in France is, “try the plat du jour”. Almost every restaurant has a small chalkboard by the door listing “the plate of the day”, and often there are a couple of choices. Entrée du jour; plat du jour; dessert du jour.

I’ve tried to abide by this adage – Qu’est-que c’est le plat du jour, I’ll ask. The rapid fire response is usually lost on me: blah, blah, le blah, blah de beouf, blah, blah avec frites. All I got was “beef” and “with fries” – but how bad could it be? (Well, pretty bad, if I put my mind to it, but it’s unlikely that stewed beef brains in pureed ochre with fries” would be a big seller, so I set my suspicions aside.) Voila, c’est le plat du jour pour moi. Merci.

And I’ve rarely been disappointed. There was one incident involving some strange sausage: andouillette sounded to me like andouille sausage back-home, but having eaten both, I suspect this is a coincidence. The andouillette I had was indeed a sausage, but the casing was obviously recently removed from some animal’s digestive tract, and the coarsely chopped meat it contained had a certain “wang” to it which whispered “kidneys” and “tripe” in the back of my mind and pit of my stomach. The frites were excellent, though, and I cleaned my plate.

But such misadventures have been rare: usually, the plat du jour is a savory cut of pork roast, or a grilled steak from some lesser region of the cow.

I know other folks who prefer to order a la carte – off the menu – and purposefully pick the item which they understand the least: I admire these souls, and will take such risks myself, but only at a Chinese restaurant when known quantities such as beef & broccoli or fried rice will be there as fall-backs should the unintelligible item also prove to be indigestible as well.

I’ve enjoyed exploring the dozens of patés for sale at even the modest modest grocery store; foie gras is a delight, despite my clear understanding of it’s true nature (if you have to ask, don’t); I’ve even brought home seafood, despite the fact that the nearest salt water is at least a day’s drive away.

But, dear readers, I regret to admit that I was undone by my cavalier attitude this past Tuesday night, and I’ve had plenty of time to contemplate the pro’s and con’s (and con’s, and con’s) of this approach, during my hourly sojourns to la toilette during the past 48 hours:

The story begins with an incongruous sign posted by the side of the road on my drive home: Pizza, Tuesdays, 6pm. No restaurant name, no phone number, no date– just the simple announcement that pizza will be available somewhere on Tuesday night at 6pm. Hmmm…

A few weeks passed, before I noticed a woman walking down the street in Arthon carrying three pizzas; a bit further on, I discover her source – a small panel truck parked in the town square: PIZZA written on the side. Hey, I thought, it must be Tuesday.

And I was smitten with this idea – let’s have pizza on Tuesday!! “Where,” asked Ceil. At the panel truck parked in the town square! “Sounds…. Umm… great, dear.”

So I counted the days, until Tuesday. Ceil was the last one home so I called and asked that she pick up the goods as she passed through town. She arrived at 6:30p empty handed – our pizzas would be ready at 8:15pm she explained. Wow, I thought, this must be a popular spot – this is gonna great! We scrambled to feed the kids something, while we waited for our dinner.

By 8:30p, Ceil had gone back into town and returned with two pies.

First, let me say that when you order a four cheese pizza in France, the cheeses are readily recognizable from their melted shapes – there’s brie, blue cheese, goat cheese and… hmm.. I’ll guess mozzarella. I would have expected Parmesan or Romano to get the nod, but it’s France, and there you go.

Second, let me also say that the rumors you’ve heard of Frenchmen cracking a raw egg into the middle of pizzas just before serving them are TRUE. Ok, ok… Deep breath…I’m being open minded… trying new things… trying new things… (but c’mon, who was the first guy who thought “I know what this needs: a raw egg!” How would that even come up?)

So we sat down to eat… and it wasn’t bad. Anything served piping hot on freshly baked crust is going to taste okay, and this was better still. In addition to the four cheese pizza, Ceil had ordered ground-beef and onions on the second pizza (an instance, I’m sure, of the palsy which overcomes one when faced with an unintelligible menu and the expectant glare of a guy standing behind a counter).

My woes began late that night… after several trips to the loo, I wandered downstairs for a bottle of water. Opening the fridge, I got a nose-full of the leftover pizza – and I went reeling back to the john for another round. Ugh.

I’ll fast forward and say that I’ve now lost two days of work as a result of my adventurous eating, and I’m sorely concerned about my ability to get back on the horse. Even the simplest restaurant fare sounds unappealing at the moment, and given the housekeeping standards in my own kitchen, I can’t see eating-in either.

It’s getting late… but tonight the only plat du jour for me is a banana and a glass of tepid water.

Ugh.