Andouillette

[Andrew Br]

By "farmyard" I take it you mean "tastes of poo"?

Andouillette.
Smells like shit.
Tastes like (I imagine) shit.

[hellymedic]

I tried the duck gizzard salad in the Dordogne once, it was on the menu of every restaurant so obviously popular. It was like eating rubber bands.

This goes back to the point about proper preparation. I've had tender, delicious gesiers, and I've had gesiers that were like strips of old boot...

Andouillette presumably needs even more careful preparation. I've yet to sample an andouillette that was prepared in such a way that I was able to eat it. And I'm in no great hurry to find one either.

Mum always used to put chicken gizzard in the soup. We loved it! Traditional chicken soup was made by boiling all out of ancient laying hens for several hours...

[Crumbling Nick]

What's all the fuss about? ... excellent, especially with the traditional mustard sauce and chips (best are around Troyes where the delicacy is a regional speciality).  If it's on the menu, I'll have it 

That said - if you order it the waiter will usually check that you know what it is (in the same way as they do with the pile of raw mince that they call steak tartare ... now that I can't get to grips with)

Rob

Like much french food, it's best explored with an open mind and a careful choice of a good cook/restaurant (pretty easy if you're off the beaten track in France). Andouillette is yummy if you don't have any translations into English .

The last qualification caused some amusement 2 years ago when we were returning to the ferry at Dieppe 2 years ago, delayed by several minor disasters. Our lunch stop (Auffay) was at the hotel. It was host to a wedding on that day! All they could offer us was the wedding menu - 5 courses at 10 Euros , starting with "une salade de gésiers". Madame had a new app for her smart phone, which was a dictionary (obviously into English, but possibly with wider applicability) of culinary/menu words, and she was just getting to grips with it. As is often the way with new technology, the food arrived before she'd unscrambled the app (give or take a few other customers).

I'd already offered my translation of "gésier" as the crop of a chicken, which I've only ever used for making gravy/stock/soup. Contrariwise, the dictionary translation of "gizzard" isn't in my culinary vocabulary . Needless to say, "la salade", as well as the remaining 4 courses, proved to be a magnificent feast. The compromise with our our timetable was the biggest challenge of the week .
 

[Crumbling Nick]

By "farmyard" I take it you mean "tastes of poo"?

That wasn't my understanding. After rather a lot of days with grandchildren I find that boringly humourless.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Well, as your approbation is something I neither seek nor value, I shouldn't find it too hard to get over that.

[citoyen]

Poo is generally what farmyards smell of, and by extension probably what they taste of too. By the standards of this forum, that's not an especially puerile observation. 

[Tigerrr]

By "farmyard" I take it you mean "tastes of poo"?

That wasn't my understanding. After rather a lot of days with grandchildren I find that boringly humourless.

Your grandchildren sound like fun guys! (you may find you smell a bit of wee anyway - lots of grandparents do - that may be why they talk about it so much).

Re Properly preparing - this extract from 'The Gallic Gourmand' 1936 is helpful :
A properly prepared andouillette should arrive steaming and glistening on the plate like a freshly passed and heated pig turd - rich and pungent with feacal goodness.  It's aroma to invade the palate. Inhaled it should trigger a gag reflex, adding a hint of acidic vomit to the back of the gullet. The prickle of sulphuric oesophagal burn is an added pleasure to the connoissuer.  After the initial gag there may be a little bilious retch into ones napkin, to clear the palate. Perhaps a glass of strong red local wine on hand from which to take a generous slug, prepares the diner for the next step. 

Cutting into it reveals the marbled concentric rings of semi-cleaned colonic tubing, gloriously accented with rich brown matter, and releases the full ripe reek that typically has diners at nearby tables turning green, paying up and leaving. Our bold diner, unabashed as a man at stool finds his own foul stinks and surges inoffensive, forks a generous pile of sewage sausage into his mouth. The hint of truffle scent atop that of manure is a classic French aroma to savour, and clings to tongue and clothes alike.

Obviously an aquired taste but even moreso the enduring after effect of breathing out ripe pigshit for the rest of the day. One for the true colonic halitosophile.


The anglo saxon 'poo' is hardly the word to describe the 'Fete du merde' that is this sausage.

[Crumbling Nick]

There is clearly a deeper truth than I imagined in the old Black Country adage that "you can eat every part of a pig except the squeak" 

[Oaky]

...

POTD!

[Tigerrr]

I think my copy of the Gallic Gourmand also has good advice on tripes,  brains, trotters, and other specialites de la belle france.  The recipe for brain smoothy recovery drink is awesome.

[hatler]

I had some rather delicious beaten lambs' testicles one time.

[Tigerrr]

I had some rather delicious beaten lambs' testicles one time.

Ah yes - hammered gigot de gonad a la bonne femme. The smashing of the prepubescent  ripening  lamb testicles, fracturing the ganglions and pulverising the tubules  to release their delightful jus. Then steeped in soothing milk and seethed in cream with fragrant healing herbs and coddled egg.  Best enjoyed as a romantic starter.

[Jaded]

I'm never going to France again. Too risky.

[Regulator]

I'm never going to France again. Too risky.

It's alright... they only want young testicles.  Not wizened old things from a wrinkly sack.   

[Jaded]

<hastily switches webcam off>

[citoyen]

I had some rather delicious beaten lambs' testicles one time.

Of course you had *beaten* lambs' testicles - the winner got to walk away with his nuts intact.

[Crumbling Nick]

I'm never going to France again. Too risky.

It's alright... they only want young testicles.  Not wizened old things from a wrinkly sack.   

Great . I'm safe. Not that it would make much difference in my decrepitude.

[renard]

1983, four hungry lads on their first night of a cycling holiday around Brittany after O levels.  Three pick the steak hache, one picks what he thinks is an escalope (actually andouilette.

To be fair to the waitress she did a lot of noise and moitioning around her stomach, but he didn't change his mind.


When it came he couldn't even take a bite of it, and neither could any of the others.
It absolutely stank!

Twenty years later I had special pizza on the fixed menu which came with potato(?) and andouilettes.  It didn't stink but it wasn't that nice.

[Oscar's dad]

... (I had it in a decent restaurant (in France) so I reckon it was a "good" one, possibly chef's own concoction.) 
...

I'm thankful that this was an occasion when my family wasn't accompanying you and your family.  I can imagine you spotting it on the menu and turning to me with a completely straight face ...

"Steve, why don't you try andouillette.  It's a sort of sausage. I've had it before and loved it.  You'll love it too!"

Me being a twat would of almost certainly gone with your suggestion.  It's that four minute thing all over again 

[T42]

I love good andouillette. There's a restaurant near here that does it in a mustard sauce. Marvellous.  Bad andouillette: merde.

Incidentally, a French prime minister once observed that "politics is a bit like andouillette: it should smell faintly of shit, but not too much".

[Canardly]

Its the colour in its raw state that puts me off, pink, brown, purple, orange and so on....no thanks.

[Tigerrr]

I love good andouillette. There's a restaurant near here that does it in a mustard sauce. Marvellous.  Bad andouillette: merde.

Incidentally, a French prime minister once observed that "politics is a bit like andouillette: it should smell faintly of shit, but not too much".

So a good andouillette - which various people agree is lovely - is one that has a clearly discernible, but not overwhelming, smell and taste of pigs faeces. A bad one however, has just a little more of that.
Of course diffeernt peoples ideas of what a faint trace of shit is vary. For the full French coprophage, nothing less than a fresh steaming turd will suffice, while the less adventurous may find merely a spray of scat to their taste. Others delight in nothing more than a faint sewery whiff or pig fart.
It is hard to get this sausage right for everyone. I guess that is part of its attraction, like a sort of foody russian roullette. Androullette. If you lose you eat shit and if you win you eat shit. 

[T42]

I love good andouillette. There's a restaurant near here that does it in a mustard sauce. Marvellous.  Bad andouillette: merde.

Incidentally, a French prime minister once observed that "politics is a bit like andouillette: it should smell faintly of shit, but not too much".

So a good andouillette - which various people agree is lovely - is one that has a clearly discernible, but not overwhelming, smell and taste of pigs faeces. A bad one however, has just a little more of that.
Of course diffeernt peoples ideas of what a faint trace of shit is vary. For the full French coprophage, nothing less than a fresh steaming turd will suffice, while the less adventurous may find merely a spray of scat to their taste. Others delight in nothing more than a faint sewery whiff or pig fart.
It is hard to get this sausage right for everyone. I guess that is part of its attraction, like a sort of foody russian roullette. Androullette. If you lose you eat shit and if you win you eat shit.

That's ever-so-slightly overstated.  But think on this: both parmesan and vomit have similar smells, likewise cheddar and sweaty feet, ditto hard-boiled eggs, chicken and fart.  It's what you think that makes you squeamish: the trick is simply not to think it.

After all, we learnt that as children when confronted with school dinners.

[RW]

Andouillette - Yum Yum.  Really, I like it.  I did order andouillette pizza a few weeks ago in Chateaudun.  That was disgusting, clearly I didn't read the ingredients carefully enough.  Instead of cheese it had mustard.  That was one I couldn't finish.

[T42]

Andouillette - Yum Yum.  Really, I like it.  I did order andouillette pizza a few weeks ago in Chateaudun.  That was disgusting, clearly I didn't read the ingredients carefully enough.  Instead of cheese it had mustard.  That was one I couldn't finish.

Jesus wept.