Silly moment #1

The city of Lyon is the gastrointestinal capital of France. All people do all day is eat, and the food is known to be creative and fancy and expensive and avant-garde! I remember when we were studying abroad, the whole group took a day trip to this city and our professor handed out 30 euros to each person so we could have a proper French meal. I remember going out with my girlfriends and we had a huge meal that lasted several hours. Matt remembers pocketing the money and eating a sandwich (or maybe just chips, knowing him).

We couldn’t be in Lyon without having a proper meal ourselves, so we chose a cute little Bouchon (as they call them) and we got a “menu de midi” (lunch set of courses). As an entrée, Matt chose a plate of charcuterie (fancy cold cuts), and I got a large salad with lardons and walnuts. Unfortunately, we both started getting full after that, and there were two more courses!

For the main course, I chose “Andouillette avec moutarde à l’ancienne” (sausage with mustard) and Matt chose “quenelle” (basically fish meatloaf with tomato sauce). He chose that because he had read a NY Times article whose author went around France tasting all of the regions specialties (what a job!). I chose mine because it was a typical dish.

However, when I cut into my sausage (the picture is taken before this momentous event), all of this stuff came out. Not juice, but chunky, flesh-colored curly things. Matt looked at it and shrugged. I took a bite and said to him “This is not good. I cannot eat this.” Just then, the waiter came to check on us, and I took the opportunity to ask was exactly is “Andouillette” and he explained that it was a sausage with tripe inside!!!! Matt burst out laughing and exclaimed “you’re eating pig poop!” I was mortified at my mistake and I barfed in my mouth a little. Why didn’t I ask before eating? WHY?!?

Needless to say, the Andouillette was left untouched, but the smell and taste of it stayed with me all day. I’m scarred for life now. We eagerly ordered our desserts: Matt got a bowl of fruit and I got nougat ice cream.