Last week I gave a bit of advice about taking a cast-iron skillet with you whenever you go to the country. Let me exend that rule to French restaurants. They don’t have much to eat there that I can tell.
Now I’m not bashing French food, mind you. We’ve got some pretty disgusting food in Alabama ourselves. Take brains and eggs for example. Or pickled pig knuckles. And it’s not as if Slim Jims and Moon Pies are likely to wind up on The Food Channel anytime soon. But nonetheless, at least they are in English so you know what you’re getting.
Last week, I went to La Goulue, which means “fatso” in French. I figured with a name like that, it’d be my kinda place. But when I got there, there were only four items on the menu. Here they are:
Foie Gras de Cunard avec le petite pois
La vauche folle avec du mutard et des oeuves
Les yeux de cochon con le vomi d’oiseaux.
Du salad de pieuvre
I stared at those four things for about half an hour, trying not to let on to the fashionable New Yorkers I was with that I had no idea what any of it was. What was I going to order? Just as I was thinking I should fess up and tell the waiter to bring me a “le hamburger,” I spotted “du salad” in the title of the last item and figured that that might mean “salad” in English. When the waiter came to the table I confidently pointed and said, “Du salad, s’il vous plait,” thinking this might mean “Bring me the salad please.”
All my New York friends looked at me funny, which I attributed to their being impressed by my pronunciation.
Let me just state here that I don’t have much luck with foreigners, especially if I’m required to speak. Take for example, my old girlfriend Rebecca. Rebecca was a beautiful and sophisticated Dutch woman who could speak four languages. I can barely speak English, but I decided one night that I would surprise Rebecca by learning a few choice Dutch phrases. I called another Dutch friend of mine who lives in Dothan (yes, Dothan) and asked him how to say a few romantic things.
He said, “Ya, sure Morgan, here are some phrases you can’t go wrong with.” Thus, for three days, I went around practicing his phrases: in the mirror in the morning; on the way to work; even in the shower. It’s okay to sound like an idiot if it’s for love.
So by the time of the big date, I was ready. Hein told me that “Van je geheime bewonderaar,” means “From your secret admirer.” So I put that on the card in the flowers and when I gave them to Rebecca she blushed and said thank you.
He also told me that “Met knor krijg je de smaak te pakken” meant, “With soup, you get the right flavor.” The other stuff was too hard to pronounce, so I was lucky to be able to say that. Rebecca seemed impressed when I said it during dinner, despite the fact that neither one of us had ordered soup.
Finally, Hein told me, that this last phrase would absolutely make Rebecca fall in love with me, “Mag ik je onderbroekje even zien.” Hein said it meant “You have beautiful eyes.” He said Dutch women know they have found their true love when he complements her eyes at the right time. So I waited for the right time. We walked in the park. Not the right time. We chatted on a bench. Still not the right time. Finally, on her doorstep, I thought I saw “the twinkle” in her eyes, so quietly I whispered “Mag ik je onderbroekje even zien” in my best Dutch accent.
Rebecca looked at me funny for a second and then slammed the door. I had unwittingly asked to see her underwear. Did I mention that I don’t quite appreciate Hein’s sense of humor?
Given this history, it shouldn’t surprise you that what I had ordered in the French restaurant wasn’t exactly a salad. It was, in fact, a baby octipus salad. The waiter lifted the lid of the plate and revealed the ten sad little visitors lay with their octipus heads cracked open and their vacant little octipus eyes staring up at me. I might add that their weren’t any prices on the menu, which is a sure sign that I’m in a restaurant I can’t afford. I thought about all the children starving in China. I thought about the famine in Ethiopia. After about twenty minutes of intense concentration on world hunger and my good fortune to have an entire plate of dead tenticles in front of me, I worked up the courage to take a bite. I wont bore you with the sordid details of my gagging on what tasked like a small collection of rubberbands dipped in codliver oil, but needless to say, I prompty forgot about China and Ethiopia.
My host looked at me with some interest and asked if I’d like a bite of his dinner. He had ordered the duck liver with small peas (foie gras de cunard avec le petite pois). His wife also offered me some of her dinner, the mad cow with mustard and eggs (la vauche folle avec du mutard et des oeuves). My only other choice would have been to order the pig eyes with lark’s vomit (les yeux de cochon con le vomi d’oiseaux) and somehow that didn’t appeal to me.
So I ate my yucky baby octipus salad, but brother, I learned an important skill–how to toss small octipi into a neighboring houseplant without your fellow diners taking notice.
—Morgan Murphy