Thought for Food

Would you like fried tripe with that?

Or: why I ate a ThinkThin bar for lunch.

Our first meal in Burgundy set the tone: for the next two days we’d dine like the Grand Dukes of the West, the swashbuckling heirs to the long-ago Kingdom of Arles. We had lunch in Lyon after taking the train from Avignon.

Le Garet, the restaurant M. selected, was absurd. In a good way. But truly absurd. Deep-fried, twice-baked, butter-slathered, pork-rich comfort foods have been trendy in the States for awhile now. Offal is, dare I say it, hot. I’ve certainly eaten my fair share. So when M. said they specialize in innards I thought, I got this.

Turns out, I don’t know from offal. Hell, America doesn’t know from offal.

Le Garet knows from offal.

A little bowl of salty fried somethings awaited us. I thought it was pig skin. Oh no no. That’s much too pedestrian. It was fried tripe.

I popped one in my mouth. Yum! Salty fried anything is alright with me, sure, but there was something indelibly, inscrutably porky about it. It was tripe done well — and I was impressed.

You see, I’ve had one intimate experience with tripe. I cooked it — or attempted to cook it — for a blog I wrote, The Great American Cooking Project. 

I failed.

Miserably.

The tripe was rubbery. It looked like something out of the belly of a pig (oh wait…). And it stunk up the whole apartment, in the middle of summer.

I still remember my roommates’ forlorn faces. They had stuck with me through it all on that little blog project of mine. A sad, droopy salad of gelatin and limp vegetables. A mealy St. Patrick’s Day “pudding” of potatoes, almond, and lemon (still puzzling that combination out in my head).

But this. This. Did they have to eat this?

So you understand. I really appreciated Le Garet’s opening gambit. Well played, mis amis.

When M. said he wanted to try the tablier de sapeur, a traditional tripe dish of Lyon, I gallantly offered to order it as part of my plat (main dish). He was ordering the frogs’ legs, which I was also keen to try, I believe for the first time. I was feeling brave!

My confidence began to waver when they brought his entree (appetizer). On the menu it was called “salade.” In person it looked like this:

Clockwise from the bottom right, that’s 

veal’s foot,

pork tendon,

unknown offal, possibly ear (!!), 

wurst, and

lentils (tasting strongly of the porky juices they undoubtedly cooked in). 

This is salade? My mind could not compute. Of course I tried everything — and enjoyed it — but I was nervous for what lay ahead.

Thankfully my starter was straightforward, nothing I’m not used to after countless trips to Russ & Daughters: pickled herring fillets.

Then came our plats. His was loud and sizzling, a cast iron skillet brimming with frog legs. Mine took up half the table: tripe, potatoes, and enough mayonnaise-y dipping sauce to serve a family of four — a German family of four (this whole thing about French portion sizes is hogwash, I tell you).

I didn’t even know where to begin. A massive portion of tripe schnitzel? This is what I was having for lunch? Wasn’t there a little noodle, perhaps, to soften the blow? A bed of creamed spinach even? Nope. Just those skillet-fried potatoes, so crisp with animal oils they’d give a vegetarian nightmares for weeks (they were, needless to say, excellent).

We made our way, slowly, through the frog legs and the tripe. Once we finished the legs — which were heavier than you’d think because they, too, were breaded and fried — we sighed in relief. I still had half a tripe that I was planning on leaving on my plate but you know what, I was okay with that.

And then, without a moment’s warning, the cook came out of the kitchen and plopped another skillet, brimming with hot frogs’ legs, next to M.

For a moment he looked defeated. The we laughed. Then he dug in. He kept plugging away, methodically extracting tender amphibian meat from tiny amphibian bone, until there was just one left.

“I’m afraid to eat it,” he said. “They might bring out another pan.”

Then he rose his arms in triumph (he’s a good sport), surveying the remains of at least 20 froggy souls on his plate.

The cook came out, looked us over, and nodded, possibly impressed. 

“Eat the last one,” he said. It wasn’t a suggestion.

M. gratefully obliged. He had said “last.”

Afterward we ordered cervelle de canut, Lyon’s traditional fresh, herbed cheese with the texture of sour cream. Not because we were hungry — oh good lord, no — but because it came with my meal. And we didn’t want to wimp out now.

“And please sir,” I asked the cook, a desperate glint in my eye, “may we have a salad? A green salad? Like with lettuce?”

Praise the great pig in the sky, our plea did not get lost in translation. We ate up those little leaves like our life depended on it. 

It probably did.