Andouillette

I wasn't sure I was going to share this with everyone because it's rather unpleasant, but it's a funny story so I thought I should. On Saturday, we were tired from touring Dieppe and the surrounding area so we decided just to eat in the hotel restaurant. It was a very nice restaurant and everything was very good. Everything except my main course that is. I'm a pretty adventurous eater and I'm always willing to try new things. Almost every time it's a success, but this night was the exception.

I ordered the Andouillette sausage. I assumed it would be similar to Andouille sausage, but I was wrong. When I ordered it, the waitress asked if I have ever had this before. When I said no, she warned me that I may not like it. In fact, she tried to talk me out of it. She described it as having a very strong taste. Strong is not the word I would use. Vile or disgusting would be more appropriate. I thought maybe she meant it would have a gamey taste so I asked if it was made with Venison or other wild game. Unfortunately her English was only slightly better than my French and she couldn't remember the English word for the main ingredient and I didn't recognize the French word. I ignored her warning and went for it.

With some further investigation we discovered the English word the waitress couldn't remember was tripe. Tripe is the lining of a cow's stomach and in my humble opinion, it is not fit for human consumption. I'm not sure dogs would eat this. I will spare you the gory details of the smell and taste, I will simply say that the next time I pass a cow pasture on a warm summer afternoon, I will have a much better understanding of where that smell comes from. It took every bit of strength and willpower I could muster in order to get my one and only bite down and keep it down.

I'm not discouraged though, I will continue to try new things and expand my culinary horizons. I'm not worried about an experience worse than this, because quite frankly, it would be impossible to have an experience worse than this one. We're going to Brussels next weekend and fortunately for me Belgium is known for beer, chocolate, waffles and fries.

db