Andouillettes de Troyes: Ross Bruniges
An eagerly awaited trip to Paris has been aborted at the last minute.
There was a good professional reason for planning the four-hour TGV journey up from the Mediterranean, but the person I was meant to be interviewing has had to fly off to Algeria on family business.
I had another, more modest cause for looking forward to a day in the capital. Paris, I had decided, was to be not only the City of Life, nor merely the City of Romance but also, for this day only, the City of Coarse Tripe Sausage.
Many will see the culinary attraction of Paris as extending some way beyond what can be done with the intestines of a pig.
Some Salut! regulars will remember only too clearly that I have always regarded awaydays in France as an excuse to indulge in andouillettes, a delicacy for which not everyone shares my taste.
My visit would have taken me nowhere near the Gard du Nord, opposite which is an excellent brasserie, Terminus Nord, that serves splendid andouillettes in a Dijon mustard sauce. But I have no doubt that an entirely satisfactory alternative would have presented itself close enough to the Gare de Lyon or my destination in the 20th arrondissment.
I can almost hear the sighs of disapproval among the great Salut! readership, and indeed more expressive responses from those who may be a little squeamish.
In an article here four years ago - Andouillettes, and becoming what you eat - I quoted the reaction of a character in a John Grisham novel on being served the American variety, chitlins: "The texture was rubbery, the taste was acrid and foul .. the smell had a barnyard essence."
And I can scarcely deny that people have been moved to similar description of the French dish. Wikipedia states: "As with all tripe sausages, andouillettes are an acquired taste. Their strong smell can be reminiscent of faeces and may offend people unaccustomed to the dish."
None of this, however, stops me regarding a plate of andouillettes, usually just one sausage, best served with chips and washed down with a perky red from the Loire or Provence, as a preferred meal. Not expensive, certainly not refined, perhaps as smelly as people say, but irresistible to my own vulgar palate.
Which is more than I used to say about pizzas. I proceeded through a large chunk of adulthood loathing the things as served in Britain.
I do not know what Italian visitors to France would make of my andouoillettes. Thinking back to a recent survey of foreign attitudes reported in the Var-Matin, they may be too busy fretting about the horrors they find in French attempts to serve Italian food.
But I would be interested to hear whether they would be more impressed by the fare at an old van permanently stationed at a car park near the seafront in Le Lavandou. I am an occasional customer, always opting for the Normandie with its cheese, lardons and olives atop a delicious thin crust, and have now amassed - over a period of more than a year - the 10 vouchers I need to qualify for a free helping.
It's a long way from Coarse Tripe Sausages, all the same.
But I have already enjoyed my récompense: a certain person arrived back from a quick walk into town this morning, as oblivious to the cancellation of my trip as she had been of what I planned to eat while away, and prepared a sublime andouillette she'd spotted at the butcher's (which also had the boudin blanc she craved).
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As France prepares for a bumper summer for tourism,
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