For a last night in France before Le Shuttle back to England and hibernation, a stopover in Champagne provided an opportunity to eat andouillettes in Troyes, the city that regards them as its speciality.
It is well enough known that I have been dining out for years, as it were, on my controversial fondness for this simple French dish of sausages made from pigs' intestines, best served with Dijon mustard and chips (French fries for American readers), and accompanied by red wine with some body.
I mocked those, including Philip Delves Broughton, my immediate predecessor in Paris when I worked for The Daily Telegraph, for their loathing of this comfort food of my choice. My lack of squeamishness even gave me a certain macho ascendancy, not that this is a trait I ever pursue.
But having asked at our hotel in the beautiful medieval heart of Troyes for a recommendation, and followed it, I am left wondering whether this mad gastronomical fling of mine has been much more than a bit of bluster. The experience was decidedly underwhelming although for that I blame myself, not the restaurant to which we were directed, Le Bistroquet.
Annoyingly, I have lost the receipt for our meal but, with the help of the establishment's website, have managed to reconstruct the essential details.
My first mistake, perhaps inspired by a long day's driving from the Med with only a sandwich for lunch, was to go for a heavy starter, pâté en croûte, while Mme Salut went more sensibly for the tartare d’avocat et mirepoix de légumes provençaux. She is no great admirer of the French version of chitterlings but nobly agreed to share andouillette maison for two, served on a plancha with four pots of different sauces - Chaource cheese, morilles mushrooms (morels), foie gras and mustard. With chips and salad for me; aligot for her.
I almost always aim low when choosing from a restaurant wine list but we were both pleased with a €22 bottle of Côtes du Rhône called Les Sens du Fruit/L’Enclaves des Papes. The bill, from memory, came to a little under €80, €20-€25 more than we'd typically pay for a non-special meal out.
Sad to relate, this meal was not special either.
I tried each of the sauces, though in reality only the morilles and mustard ones interested me, and I greedily devoured the contents of a small bowl of chips. But the overall impression was that it was all okay, sans plus as the French say.
Yet this was Troyes, the home of andouillettes and the restaurant had been heartily praised at the reception desk of the Hôtel Les Comtes de Champagne.
I was not offended by or even, in truth, conscious of the farmyard odour others profess to detest. The texture was as I've known it elsewhere. I just wasn't blown away, as I'd hoped and expected to be. And then I remembered the last time I'd eaten andouillettes, on a platform-level brasserie at the Gare de Lyon in Paris; you expect station fare (excluding the same terminus's splendid, exquisitely ornate qnd somewhat expensive Le Train Bleu) to be modest, but Le Bistroquet's house special was not hugely superior.
Our palates undoubtedly change. Except in a handful of familiar haunts, or when going significantly upmarket, I no longer take quite the same enjoyment from what we blithely call Indian cuisine as I once did. Have standards really fallen or has my taste evolved; either way, I'd now sooner eat Vietnamese or Thai food.
I am sorry it had to end like this andouillettes, and will doubtless look you up again for old time's sake. See it as a trial separation if you like, but I'm afraid things may never be the same between us.
See also
* Andouillettes and becoming what we eat
* Andouillettes, pizzas and more food for thought
* The Great Andouillette Debate: exquisite delicacy or obnoxious aberration?
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