On our first day in Normandy we took the train down to Mont Saint Michel, the mythical abbey and church built on an isolated craggily rock-faced island just off the coast. It is said that the Archangel Michael appeared to the local bishop around 700 AD and told him to “Build here and Build high,” and reassured the bishop that “If you build it…they will come”…I had always thought that that line originated with the movie Field Of Dreams, obviously not…Anyways, and so they have come, for centuries religious pilgrims and now tourists have flooded this tiny island, and Zach and I were right there among them this Friday morning…We trekked up what seemed like thousands of stairs that lead to the pinnacle where a less than impressive church was set, and upon our descent we decided that we should have some lunch on the island before boarding the train and heading back to Bayeux. We opted for the first non-sketchy restaurant with a descent fixed-price menu to settle in for lunch…We both opted for salad for our first course (the other option was duck foie gras, which I already knew to steer clear of), for dessert we both order Crème Brulee – always a safe option in France, and for our main “plat” Zach ordered Roasted Pork, and I made the fateful decision to order Tripes, or as it was translated on the menu “Traditional Normandian Stew.” With a translation like “Traditional Normandian Stew” I figured I would be getting something like a fish stew, since I was also under the misconception that Tripe was a type of fish…I now realize that I was thinking Trout…Note to Self: Tripe and Trout are two very different things…
Our first course of “Salad” was really nothing more than shredded carrots and lettuce, Zach and I both agreed that we had a word for that back in the States, and that would be Coleslaw, and that they might consider including that in their updated menu. Once we had finished, they brought us out our main courses, two plates of Roasted Pork…I got the attention of our waiter and informed him that I had not ordered the pork, but had ordered the fish...the Tripes? He grabbed my plate muttered something that could best be assumed to be “oh yah” and hurried off to get me my “Traditional Normandian Stew.” Moments later he returned with a steaming bowl of stew. There were stewed potatoes, carrots, peas, and this odd looking meat…I couldn’t really cut it up in the bowl so I flopped a piece out onto my plate…It defiantly wasn’t fish, it was much to rubbery…from personal experience I know that meat over here tends to be kinda fatty…but there didn’t appear to be much “meat” in the traditional sense either. In fact, it looked like, what I imagine it would look like if calamari and a manicotti noodle got together and had a baby…I tend to be a pretty picky eater but I figured, this is a nice restaurant…whatever this is cant kill me. So I grabbed my knife and cut myself off a piece…Zach set there, on the edge of his seat, anxiously awaiting whether or not I would actually try it…and I did, and I will attest to you right now it was literally the worst piece of food I have ever put into my mouth, and I have had to struggle through several attempted home-cooked meals by Celeste Herbert…I tried one of the potatoes and it too tasted like it had been marinating in manure for the last few hours, but I feel like the real indicator of just how nasty this meal was, was that when I offered a bite to Zach, he refused…yes ladies and gentlemen, Zachary Christiansen refused food.
Just what exactly Tripes were had been in the back of my mind all weekend, and so yesterday when we got back to Metz and I was once again reunited with my laptop, I relied on the definitive source on all subjects to help me gain some enlightenment into Tripes: I Wikipedia-ed it. My first skimming of the page was enough to make my stomach turn over on itself again, the words “cow or sheep digestive tract” said it all, but to top it all off it is stewed with potatoes, assorted vegetables and cow foot!!! And to think, I sent back the roasted pork…You might be wondering if the Crème Brulee faired any better, and sadly I report that it did not…my crème had not been “Brulee-ed” and tasted more like a bowl of cold hard boiled eggs in custard form. Needless to say the rest of the weekend I stuck to food that was explicitly described in my French menu decoder, and even then aired on the side of caution…
The rest of the weekend we explored all that Normandy has to offer. We took a day long “Battle Bus” tour of the D-Day beaches and other significant WW2 sights, and then spent a day exploring the coast of the English Channel, first with a stop in Honfluer, a quaint fishing town and art enclave, and then with an afternoon in the resort town of Trouville. Shockingly enough it was cold and rainy so I was unable to bask in any golden rays, despite the fact that I was at the beach…My pictures as always are up on my Webshots:
This weekend Zach and I are headed to Amsterdam…No comments please…
Lots of Love,
Hillary
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