Traumavertissement for the non-carnivorous: The following contains many mentions of meat. And merde.
1.
Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine. — James Joyce, Ulysses
I think we all agree, when it comes to food, there is delicious, there is “meh”, and there is disgusting. What we don’t agree on, however, is which is which. One person’s marmite, for example, is another person’s durian. Your stinky tofu, my goat’s head taco. Leo Bloom’s fried hencods’ roes, Gwyneth Paltrow’s intravenously injected phosphatidylcholine. My toasted peanut butter, tomato, mayonnaise, hot sauce, and freshly ground black pepper sandwich— your morning glass of Mongolian sheep eyeball juice. And so on.
Then there’s the moral form of disgust. Live monkey brains. Farmed salmon. GMO corn. Foie gras from force-fed geese. Anally ingested ozone (Gwyneth again). Cow. Lamb. Pig. Chicken. Lobster. Carrots.
William: And, ahm: what exactly is a fruitarian?
Keziah: We believe that fruits and vegetables have feelings, so we think cooking is cruel. We only eat things that have already fallen off a tree or bush—that are, in fact, dead already.
William: Oh, all right. Interesting stuff. So, these carrots...
Keziah: Have been murdered, yes.
William: Murdered? Poor carrots. How beastly!1
Full disclosure: I eat or have eaten—more often than not with the above-cited Leopold Bloomian relish (which, btw, is a great name for a condiment)—almost every foodstuff listed so far, from giblets through gizzards past tripes, liver, kidneys, all the way to the poor, murdered carrots at the tail end, which I eat raw. Or roasted. Or pan-fried to perfection in a curry carotte à l’Alain Passard. Be they alive or be they dead, I grind them up to make my bread. Including those I personally rip screaming from their beds by the roots.
The only things on that list I haven’t yet devoured, besides the Gwyneth Paltrow Goop® goop, are the monkey brains and the Mongolian sheep eyeball juice.
I will not be catheterising Gwyneth-recommended fluids into my veins any time soon. Should I find myself at a breakfast buffet in Ulaanbaatar, however, I might try the sheep peeper special. Should there or elsewhere I be offered a monkey’s seat of emotion and self-awareness, alive or dead, I’ll probably pass.
That said, I have eaten more than my fair share of animalic cerebra. Calf, sheep, rabbit, fish, shrimp, prawn, duck, certainly, unaware, no shortage of random bugs’ brains, and probably a few others I’m forgetting.
Like Leo Bloom, tail to snout, inside and out, I’ve noshed on pretty much every masticable bit of conventional table beast there is.
I’m not proud of this. Just stating it as fact. And I accept that my days of indiscriminately consuming many of these meats are numbered. And should be. Cows and their calves, sheep and their lambs, we should not eat be eating these. As species, bovines and ovines should be left off our plates, no longer domesticated, and allowed to achieve their full and final extinction.
Fish, too. Shellfish, three. Pigs, four. Chickens and ducks, five and six. Hell, all of it. The whole nine (barn)yards. Except for the bugs. Which leads to today’s subject. But before we get to it, a word or two from my sphincter sponsor.
2.
First, some science.
You’ve no doubt heard by now about the microbiome, the “community” of microorganisms—fungi, bacteria, viruses, archaea, algae, phages, plasmids, eukaryotes and other protists, specialized metabolites, and toxins—that live and exist together in any given habitat.
In us, by which I mean in the most current and inclusive assignations of us — men, women, children, and every existing anthropoidal-identifying form between and beyond — the term microbiome is used to describe the microbial mix that lives in or on our skin, mammary glands, seminal fluid, uterus, ovarian follicles, lung, saliva, oral mucosa, conjunctiva, biliary tract, and gastrointestinal tract.
Today, we’re going to focus on the one near the end of the pipe of that last one, the GI tract, the alimentary canal of the digestive system leading from our mouths to our butts.
Behold, above, our “theatre of activity”, with most of its proscenium arch obscured by the Greater Omentum, which is not the code of silence of the Sicilian diaspora, nor the nether regions of the Later Roman Empire, but the larger of the two pinafore-like folds of visceral peritoneum surrounding our guts. Known as the epiploon, from the Greek epipleein, meaning to float or sail on, in this case, not Homer’s wine-dark sea, but the gloopy surfaces of our intestines. They’re what you first see when you open the abdominal cavity (Don’t try this at home). The greater one hangs down and extends over the long bulging border of your stomach, passes in front of your small intestines, doubles back and climbs the transverse colon before reaching the backside of your abdominal wall. The lesser omentum, which we’re not interested in here, but which I’ll gross you out with anyway, hangs down from your liver to the lesser curvature (curvatura ventriculi minor) between your cardiac and pyloric orifices, forming your stomach’s right-side border, and housing your hepatic artery proper, common bile duct (as opposed to the uncommon bile duct, which last time I checked was located just inside RFK Jr’s windpipe), portal vein, lymphatics, and hepatic plexus of nerves.
The greater omentum is often harvested, either for medical purposes—to rebuild the thoracic wall, reinforce bioengineered tissues during cardiac regeneration surgery, or provide revascularization of brain tissue after a stroke—or for making sausages, faggots and meatballs.
Okay so far? There will be a test at the end.
3.
Eat shit and die thrive!
Okay, back to the microbiome, and to something that sounds like it’s right up Gwyneth’s “alley”—vaginal seeding.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the microbes and their mates living in our entrails play essential roles in our immunity and development. It is more recently acknowledged that babies not vaginally born, but by caesarean section, don't get the same measure of their mother’s microbial richesse, and are thus more at risk of developing disorders such as asthma and allergies. This is because, at the moment of vaginal launch from the mothership, babies receive a mouthful of vaginal flora—and a shit sandwich—when they pass the perineum, the area around the vulva and anus. Babies have no bacteria in their large intestines when they are born. New-ish studies suggest that feeding C-section infants, who only get microbes from their mother’s skin, a small amount of their mothers’ stool and vaginal fluids, will replenish their gut microbiome. This, it is suggested, will give them access to the unique B. infantis bacteria, and their immune systems a kickstart.
There’s a ton of literature out there on this. So I’m not going to provide any links (as most of you are reluctant to click on links) except this one here.
Vaginal seeding is just the latest in fecal microbiato transplantation (FMT) research. Veterinarians have practiced “transfaunation,” a treatment for ruminating animals in which stomach microorganisms are transferred from healthy donor animals to sick animals, since the 16th century.
Fecal transplantation in humans, also called stool transplant, involves putting healthy donor faeces into a recipient’s colon. It is usually performed by colonoscopy. In the first recorded case of it, however, in China in the 4th century, it was served as a soup. As it was in the second recorded case, 1,200 years later:
The influential 16th century Chinese physician, herbalist, and acupuncturist, Li Shizhen, used “yellow soup,” “golden syrup,” and other remedies containing fresh, dried, or fermented stool to treat abdominal diseases.—Henning Gerke, “Whats the lowdown on ‘fecal transplantation’?”, Health at Iowa, 2014.
Don’t try this at home, either.
4.
“Rectum? Damn near ate one!”
Do, however, try this:
Sorry. That does not look appetizing. How about this then:
Served with a mustard sauce on a bed of golden fries, with a crusty baguette, a small green salad, and a glass of Beaujolais, Chablis or Champagne. Yum, right? What’s not to like?
Ask Mr Stanley Tucci, actor, TV food dude, and author of Taste: My Life Through Food:
We were driving the next day to go up to Paris to continue promoting the film. And as we were driving up, we stopped at a place for lunch. We're looking at the menu, it was with Meryl (Streep) and her brother and a couple of other people, and we see on the menu, andouillette. I said, ‘Well, what is andouillette?’ And Meryl said, ‘Oh yes, andouillette. Well, I've never had andouillette, have you?’ ‘No, I've never had andouillette.’ ‘Well, I love andouille sausage.’ ‘Me too.’ ‘So I guess it's just like… smaller… because of the ette.’ — “An Unforgettable Meal with Stanley Tucci”
Ok, by “andouille” here Mr Tucci means the most common form of American andouille, the Louisiana Cajun version, which is a rather benign, double-smoked sausage made with pork, garlic, pepper, onions, wine, and seasonings. He doesn’t mean the original French version, a large-bored and odoriferous sausage made of pig (or veal) chitterlings, tripe, (and, often, the animal’s entire GI tract), onions, wine, and seasoning. Nor does he mean the country Cajuns’ version made west of Lafayette, Louisiana from pig intestines seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper, soaked overnight in water and vinegar, rinsed well, stuffed one into another lengthwise, cut and tied into long links with string and hung for a spell in a smokehouse.
Nor does he mean “andouille” as it is used in French argot—to indicate a fool, imbecile or idiot.2
Here, what Mr Tucci is describing that he, Mrs Streep and their Julie and Julia party are sitting down to, is the French andouillette, the pale-grey, dead-penis-like thing cross-sectioned in the photo above, which indeed does literally mean “little andouille”. Except it isn’t so little.
We had our appetizers, and we were, you know, having wine. And they bring out this thing that looked like… a horse cock. I'll say it again, a horse cock. And, and I was like, ‘What the fuck is that?’ And Meryl, I looked at her and she was like, ‘It’s hardly ette’… So, so I, I went and… (mimes putting forkful of andouillette in his mouth, shudders and moans painfully). I mean, it was horrifying. I looked at her and she was doing the same thing, putting it in, and she went, ‘Ooh’. And I was like, ‘Wow. What is that?’ And she said, ‘I don't know’. I said, ‘That's awful’. And she said, ‘Yes, it does have a bit of the barnyard about it.’ —“An Unforgettable Meal with Stanley Tucci”
Okay. But. This is a classic error of sensory perception, first pointed out by Plato in his cave, and reaffirmed by Berkeley, Kant and Hegel. You can’t always trust your senses. Put another way, you have to get past the smell, Stanley, and put on your big-boy bib. If you’re a meat eater, the taste of an andouillette, especially paired with the mustard, frites, salad and Beaujolais, Chablis or Champagne, is incontestably exquisite. Do you not eat stinky cheese? Are you afraid of Camembert? Roquefort? Gorgonzola? Casu marzu? Stinky tofu? Kimchi? Caldo gallego? Boiled eggs? Black pudding? Haggis? White pepper? Durian? Fritti misti? Natto? Natural wine? Gwyneth’s This Tastes Like My Vagina chocolates? Then, well, jeesh, you’re really missing out.
It's basically offal. Wrapped in offal, but it's not like really cooked. It's not, it's just seasoned and cleaned. Maybe it steamed. I don't know. I don't know. They say like, ‘Andouillette, you're such a fool. How could you not, not like andouillette. It's amazing.’ And you're like, ‘It's fucking disgusting!’ . . I think, I think it is the reason Brexit really happened. “An Unforgettable Meal with Stanley Tucci”
Not really cooked?! The pork or veal meat in your andouilllette was raw when it was put in its casing, but it had been thrice washed before that, then, for a day or two, immersed in wine, marc de champagne, Armagnac or cognac, chopped onions, shallots and herbs, mustard, and spices. Then poached for as many as five hours in a court bouillon. Then, I hope, in the restaurant kitchen, it was grilled. Or at least pan-fried. To perfection! Yours was steamed…?! Where the hell was this restaurant?! How did you choose it??! Please, Stanley, next time, don’t be an andouille, give me a call.
Oh, and Brexit. The argument can be made that, yes, 51.89% of the UK population voted to leave the European Union in part because of a sausage. But not the andouillette. The British banger. Going back to the early 1990s, many Brits feared regulatory overreach by Brussels — that higher EU food processing standards would outlaw British sausages which, traditionally (or at least since meat rationing days during WWII) are bulked up with water and filler (breadcrumbs etc., sometimes as much as 90%). Boris and the Brexiters made those fears sizzle.
The higher water content, btw, is why they’re called “bangers”: when the water in them turns to steam, they often explode in the frying pan.
5.
Politics is like andouillette, it has to smell a bit like shit, but not too much. — Edouard Herriot, former French Assembly deputy for Troyes, home of the most reputed andouillette.
Okay, so much more to say, but I’m getting hungry, and I’m on holiday, and the Breton sun is finally out after a solid week of rain and gale-force winds. Let me just end by adding a link (sorry).
The Association Amicale des Amateurs d'Authentic Andouillettes, often called "5A", created in the early 1960s, awards the "AAAAA" diploma (valid for two years) to butchers who produce andouillettes judged by its jury (of 5) to be of the highest quality. This diploma is mainly granted to “Troyes”-type andouillettes but is not reserved for “pure pork”. (In the past, veal andouillettes were more common, and many still use veal exclusively, especially in Auvergne, Cambrésis and Lyonnais-Beaujolais.)
Andouillettes do not have Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status or appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) certification. The best ones, however, have the AAAAA diploma. Insist on it. Also, the mention that the sausage was hand-assembled: “fabriqué à la main” and/or “tirée à la ficelle”.
This “string” method, probably less common than many articles suggest, involves tying together the ends of meat cut into strips and pulling them through the gut intended to contain them. It requires expertise and availability, and in no case does it allow for profitable mass production (generally a few dozen andouillettes a week, exceptionally a few hundred with a small-trained team, as mechanisation of this process is impossible). It's by opening an andouillette or a large portion of andouillette lengthways that you can check whether it has been pulled "à la ficelle" (or "à la corde", as they say in Vouvray): the layout is tidier, more stretched out, more regular. — Wikipedia (French)
One last thing. Actually, one last greater thing, the Greater Omentum, that apron-like flappy fold around your gutbucket. I’d forgotten I’d written about it at length above, and now I can’t remember why.
I’d like to use it just the same to wrap this up, as it were. The young bovine version, fraise de veau, which we call calf’s caul or ruffle, is a key ingredient of all veal andouillettes. Low in fat, with low lipid content, it is rich in good quality protein, contains essential amino acids, and is an excellent source of vitamins and iron.
And for 15 years, from 2000 to 2015, it was banned in France, because of BSE, aka mad-cow disease.
But that’s a story for another time.
O my fine andouillette. Surely your cosy skin Runs a grave peril. For you, round girl, I’d smash apart a barrel. Hisses, bursts and tears, My Princess of Troyes, With a streaked black side. My appetite keeps you In a mustard tomb From Maille or Vert-Pré. -Charles Monselet, "Sonnet to Andouillette", Le Plaisir et l'amour, 1865
Comments
Have I made my “case”? Did you get the “caul”? Is the proof in the poo-ding?
Have you ever had an andouillette? Is Mr Tucci right? Is it “fucking disgusting”? Or is he an andouille? Don’t get me wrong. I loved him in Big Night and I love him as an actor. As a food dude, I’m not so sure. In his book, he describes a restaurant in my hometown as one of his favourites in the world. I’ve eaten there. It’s a “meh” at best. “My friend X, the generous genius,” he writes, “his expert use of the sous-vide method of cooking alone, especially twenty years ago when he first opened, sets him apart from so many chefs, as does his ability to integrate Asian flavors and techniques into Italian dishes.” To which my friend, Hanzhou, who I’ve written about here and there, and who is also from my hometown (and is FINALLY opening his own restaurant in Paris!) says, “WTF? This Stanley guy sounds shite.”
What foods disgust you? What food gets a “bum” deal?
Have you ever looked in Gwyneth Paltrow’s fridge?
When people say something “tastes like shit”, how do they know? Unless…
What should I write about next week?
Thanks for reading!
Roger Michell (screenplay by Richard Curtis), Notting Hill, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment,1999
Personne sans caractère, sans vigueur, faible ; insulte : individu bête, stupide, idiot, imbécile ; agir inconsidérément, déraisonnablement, stupidement ; faire l'idiot, ne pas être sérieux ; mentir grossièrement ; comme un idiot ; être hébété, rendu idiot d'étonnement ; prendre pour un imbécile
This is a scream! I don't want to eat any of it, but I have gobbled down the words with great gusto. I know exactly who to forward this to, too!
I had a similar experience as Mr. Tucci, albeit sans Streep, in a bustling restaurant in the centre of Paris (As an aside, my Francophone spelling of centre has been spell-checked...twice now.) My wife ordered duck confit, and my son steak frites. Dad, wanting to appear an 'think-outside-the-box' diner, ordered the Andouillette, following the same line of reasoning as Mr. Tucci.
You can imagine my surprise.
While not casting as wide a culinary net as the learned author of Hexagon, I fancy myself possessed of a somewhat adventurous palate. With the Andouillette, however, I met my match; the best thing I can say about it is that it likely pairs well with one of Gwyneth's chocolates, although I can't confirm that to be true.