I am super stomach man, able to eat small colonies of bacteria in a single bite! Hear me roar! *makes stomach bulge out as it growls defiantly*

French food is really good, but sometimes it does things that Americans just wouldn’t do. More specifically, they get away with things we would consider unsanitary or unsafe. But hey, the food’s good, so why complain?

Since we were only in France for a short time, I only managed to eat two “French” meals (the other was Chinese take-away). But they certainly were eye-opening. The first night, Jere and I went out and found a nice brasserie where we could sit outside and eat. Unfortunately, my vocabulary being as weak as it was, I could read the menu, and usually recognize the words, but often I couldn’t remember just what the ingredients were.

So, I ordered a salad that sounded alright. It had lettuce, tomato, sautéed potatos, and was topped with bacon and andouille. Sounds alright, right? Well, andouille is not like the sausage you’re probably envisioning. With a sausage, who knows what part of the animal you’re eating, and you’re probably getting all the odd cuts of meat, but it’s all ground up and in sausage form, so you don’t really concern yourself with it. French andouille is the same stuff, but whole and not in sausage form. All those odd, fatty, sometimes threatening looking pieces of meat that we’d throw away in the States sitting on a plate. Most Americans would probably stop right there, but I said “c’est la vie” and went for it. It really wasn’t all that bad.

Just when I thought my French culinary adventures were over, I got lunch in Bayeux at a little Italian-style restaurant. I figured this would be both safe and cheap. However, at the same time, I didn’t want anything too boring, so I ordered the pizza campagnarde, the “country pizza,” which had stronger cheese, ham, and an egg. I figured they’d put a fried egg on top. But when I got the pizza, lo and behold a raw egg right in the center, slowly cooking from sitting on the hot pizza. I figured if I was going to get salmonella poisoning, at least I was going to get it for a good reason, so I went ahead and ate it. It was pretty good, and since I haven’t gotten sick yet, I figure it worked out alright.

I worry about people who travel when they really aren’t up for adventure. Certainly, I could be eating Mickey-D’s all day during this trip (and we have one or two students on this trip who are about that adventurous), but I’d be missing out. Without really trying the food, your visit to a foreign country is one sense short of the full 5. Besides, sometimes food can tell you things about a culture that you might not learn anywhere else.

Tomorrow I’ll be headed to Cambridge. Hopefully, the food there will be cheaper than it is in London. As it is, I’ve spent practically all my per diem money on food and drink. Of course, I’ve been eating very well during this trip as a result. But more importantly, how do you really put a price on trying new things?

Posted on July 1st, 2004 by Lee
Filed under: Uncategorized