Hi Foodies, I was reading an article in the Guardian about some of the bizarre foods eaten in Sardinia. This tourist was describing his experience eating (fresh) blood soup from lamb and casu marzu (maggot cheese).
Just wondering what was your most bizarre food eating IN FRANCE?
For me, it is probably andouillette.
Bon journee~!
As a boy I used to go 'old Mrs Sibley's' tripe shop, up three steps from the pavement and there laid out on the marble slab would be that day's delivery of tripe. She would always cut off 'thick' bits for me, which were meaty. Then home for it to be cooked into a lovely dish of tripe and onions and plenty of milk, served with a pile of mashed potato - one of my favourite dishes - but tripe a la France, no thank you!
Star of the Schlachtplatte!! Oh the BLISS of good haggis...
ps Must be missing something with andouillette - every time I try it, it's vile and makes me go AAArgh!
I ate tripe soup in Romania; not much taste and a bit of challenge to eat without dribbling, but I'm looking forward to degusting the French version when my sister-in-law pulls her finger out and serves what she says is one her favourite dishes.
As strange French foods go, I'm quite taken with "tête roulée". All things considered, you have to admire the French for coming up with something called rolled head.
Saugrüssel, that's what a pig's snout is called, been searching my brain cells all week for that.
I ate a maggoty cheese in Corsica - not bad. I simply do not like andouillette, nor do several French friends.
Yam hu mu in Thailand is delicious but like those, sliced pig's ear. Saures Lüngerl in Germany, ragout of lung and heart. Not only Germans but many other nations eat pigs' snouts and we Scots eat Haggis, the king of sausages but if you knew what was in there... Lovely aren't they Véro?
I was looking for inspiration from an old Farmers Weekly cookbook - came across Lamb Tail Pie. It suggests you request the shepherd to keep the cut tails warm in sacking (not sure if that is the lamb after tailing or the tails once cut!!)
I am fairly certain that andouille is purely smoked pigs intestines.Andouile de Guemene is where the intestines are pulled one inside the other .When cut through it shows a concentric ring cross section.
Andouille de Vire is where the intestines are cubed,chopped and then made into a sausage.
Andouillete is different in that it contains pigs trotter meat .
I will be spending tomorrow at a producers in Guemene actually making the sausages.
The owner is the President of our fetes commitee ,and all the comitee members are volunteering their time ,so that the finished product can be sold for charity.
Try it thinly sliced, and slightly crisped over charcoal ......it is delicious !
But andouilettes aren't just French. I was brought up on chitterlings in the UK which are the same thing although usually pressed and sliced rather than formed into a sausage. Lovely! I love liver - particularly from lambs or calves especially, kidneys from lambs too. As a child I used to have pig trotters regularly although the texture of tripe - the ridges - never appealed to me.
Provençal pieds paquets - long stewed sheep feet with stuffed parcels of sheep stomachs. Well done they’re delicious.
Tripe is vv popular in Germany as well - there are all sorts of different types & ways of cooking them. You all probably eat lots & udders, noses etc in your UK sausages ;-)
Tripe and Drisheen are a localised speciality where I come from (Cork, Ireland) but it’s from old times. I’ve never had either!
We used to be given tripe & onions in white sauce about once a fortnight when I was at school in Scotland. Too slithery cooked that way for me but tripe grilled & crunchy or andouillette are OK. Like many French & British people I love liver & kidneys & brains (but I'm less fond of tongue & heart).
TRIP (tripe) - disgusting! How the French can consider that as a delicacy I don't know
La politique, c'est comme l'andouillette, ça doit sentir un peu la merde, mais pas trop. Edouard Herriot ancien président de la conseil et de l'assemblée nationale 1927.
Actually like it's larger cousin the andouille it's delicious. It's only chitterlings after all. Don't you have "the chitterling circuit" in the deep South of the US?
OMG, just looked up about andouillette!
Stinky beyond clothes peg standards. But perhaps, it is like a good stinky cheese - tastes better the worse it smells?
I couldn't stomach something knowingly and proudly made of pig's colon...