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andouillette
Everything you hear about French food is mostly true. It really is great. However, I suffered my first ever food defeat in Paris. We sat down to have lunch at a lovely little cafe on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, and I was moved to try something new from the menu. Chitterling sausage with sauted potatoes and a mustard sauce sounded good to me, and it looked good when it arrived. I cut into the sausage and squirmy things oozed out, spilling onto my plate. It looked disgusting, but I persevered and ate a mouthful. The 'whatever it was' sausage had an unpleasant flavour. It tasted ever so slightly off to me. To make matters worse, the texture, oh, the texture...Slimy and chewy and...Anyway, I decided that I really needed to have another mouthful, just to be sure that I didn't like it. This one tasted and felt just the same. Absolutely horrible. I decided that I really needed to have a third mouthful...This was the one that did it. I started chewing, but it was all I could do to stop myself from gagging, so I quickly swallowed it. I really had no idea what it was that I was eating, but I guessed that if they were serving it for lunch in a busy little cafe in the middle of Paris it couldn't be that odd. Turns out that Andouillette is a tripe sausage, and a very traditional French dish. I've never eaten tripe before, and I don't think I ever will again. Don't be put off by this little tale. Next time you are in Paris, try the Andouillette. You might like it.
mr mcmuffin on 13 Oct 2005 @ 10:03 PM ✲ Permalink
Comments
Oh ducky!!! I could have warned you, I SHOULD have warned you. Andouille everywhere else in the world is NOT andouille in France.
Damn those culinary purists.
Posted by: jo | 13 Oct 2005 22:52:19
I had this in Paris too, last year. It was in a little café in the uni district with a very odd revolving door and walls so brown it looked like Simone de Beauvoir had coughed up her smoker's lung. It caught my eye on the menu, too. "Qu'est qu'cé?" I asked the waitress. "A very interesting sausage," she shot back, which seemed like an adequate description. The taste was just as you described it but I thought it was a stuffed goose's neck, or something similar.
Posted by: David.2 | 14 Oct 2005 07:45:52
When I saw the picture, I thought it was fish, chips and Chinese curry sauce. WhenI read what it was YUK.
Posted by: Keith | 14 Oct 2005 08:03:49
I thought it was going to be the phallus of a large beast. It even looks like it. In a beastly way. (Not that I'm an expert, might I add...)
Bet you definitely won't be eating it again now!
Posted by: David (TEFL Smiler) | 14 Oct 2005 13:06:53
This is why I stick to vegetables.
Thanks for the card, btw, it arrived today. Mrs Carrots thought you'd named the Mini McMuffin Dave. She's a bit slow, you know.
Posted by: Steve | 14 Oct 2005 13:37:06
Brilliant.....at least I'm not the only one who chooses dodgy food in Paris. The raw liver probably wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't incubate liver cells for a living!
Posted by: Mrs Carrot Cake | 15 Oct 2005 11:34:19
I tired this stuff in Champeix, France. Good Lord... I will never get over it. There were two forms. One was a tripe stew... horrible... and the other was the actual sausage. This was the vilest thing I ever ate. Unfortunately we came across it in other forms in France, we idn't recognize it and thinking it was ham rolled with cramcheese, tried it again. Talk about putrid... A taste never to be forgotten
Posted by: susan lipsett | 10 Nov 2005 22:39:43
Hmmm.... well at least you can say you tried it - more than most have dared.
I had it by mistake in a small town in southern france a decade ago as a twenty-one year old. Me and 4 mates were on our way to the south of france for a month of fun and we stopped in a town on the way; it was Bastille day and the town square was packed that evening. There was a guy in the middle of the square barbequeing different types if sausages and we all ordered one. EWveryone else got this bratwurst type thing but i ordered the largest type and was told it was andouillette. I was happily chomping away in the dark square, watching the fireworks - I must admit it tasted superb, meaty and peppery and nicely smoked from the barbie. I took a bite when a large rocket exploded and filled the sky with light and saw for the first time what i had been eating; tubey/veiny rubbery innards - not a pretty sight. However, i soldiered on and it was without a doubt, a culinary delight.
Our local french bistro in London serves them with mustard sauce and I often pop in - they are just wonderful. Needless to say Im almost the only englishman that does!
I would recommend one over ANYthing from McDonalds ANYDAY. At least you know whats in it.!
Posted by: ADDLED | 2 Feb 2006 21:54:45
WOW! You are my hero. I can't imagine anyone who wasn't brought up on the stuff actually liking it. It takes all sorts, I guess...
Posted by: mr mcmuffin | 4 Feb 2006 09:07:53
It looks, smells and tastes of poo. I'm sure the French just put excrement in a sausage skin and offer it to Brits whilst they laugh up their froggy sleeves.
Posted by: TonyW | 7 Apr 2006 09:02:40
Me and andouillettes go back a long way - andouille is not quite the same BTW.
I asked what they were, got une réponse honnête, plucked up courage to eat one and have been a fan ever since.
Those thatched-rooved cheapo restaurants Courte Paille do a super andouillette and chips! Yum!
Actually, it's not intestine but stomach. The funny smell is cooked gastric juices (amino acids?).
Posted by: Jonathan Walker | 8 May 2006 17:56:30
Accidentally ordered one in Gallerie Lafayette, Nice. Well, I ate it, although I probably never will order it again. But the others in the table didn't like the odour at all. Yes, I had the dictionary, but didn't bother to check...
Posted by: Antti Louko | 31 Jul 2006 10:59:50
WEll, I've just returned from Paris where I had my first Andouillete experience and I can safely assure anyone that it will be my last. I was feelign adventorous and it looked so damned nice on the pic on the menu, but as soon as I cut it open the smell!!! Clean took my appetite waay and that of the three other Englanders sharing the table.
I agree with Mr. Mcmuffin and thank god for strong beer!
Posted by: Kev The Toad | 27 Sep 2006 19:33:31
Just back from Dinan in Brittany where I had andouille with odd mustardy creamy sauce and shoe-string fries. The restaurant did have english translations, but having never heard of chitterling sausage before I was none the wiser. I must say I thought it was quite nice (although copious amounts of muscadet may have swayed my opinion); Bit like smoked german sausage or similar. I did wonder what the wiggly things were, was trying to remember what the french word for worms was as i thought it may have been a descriptive term.
Pulled out my huge French/English dictionary this morning and found that the entry simply said chitterling sausage again. Clearly a job for Google, and here I am. Mmmm, tripe - nowhere near as bad as the tripe stew I had whilst living near Chartres though, the memory of furry stomach meat floating in its own greasy juice is etched in my mind forever I fear, although thankfully I no longer remember the exact taste/smell.
Posted by: Liz Hill | 3 Oct 2006 13:11:03
This post and comments are too funny -- enjoyable reading. :-) I just tried andouillette for the first time last night and loved it, but I was brought up eating Italian blood sausage (our family calls it salam' di fidic', I can't de-Calabrese-ify it enough to find it on Google), which tastes somewhat similar. I can understand people not liking it. The smell takes getting used to, I'm sure, if you haven't smelled it all your life.
Posted by: Chris T. | 17 Nov 2006 14:42:07
I love Cajun andouille, and Cajun's are of French heritage. So when I saw andouillettes on the menu at a restaurant along the Nivernais I wanted to try it. The waitress stubbornly refused to allow me to order it, so I order yet-another-steak, but this one with cepes. It turns out to have been a doubly good choice because I think it was the best steak I've ever eaten, and because I later learned what andouillettes look like and are made of. I'm not a prissy eater. I grew up eating tripe sandwiches. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. I could eat termites, too, if I needed to do so to survive, but such was not my need at that time. :-)
Posted by: Brian Godfrey | 7 Feb 2007 20:21:57
Yea. Andouille and Andouillette are NOT the
same. Day 2 of assembling a cassoulet and
time to cook sausages. These gray sausages
look funny, smell funny, fall apart and have
odd looking ingredients. Turns out it's basically offal and not the kick ass punctuation necessary at all. Back to the store for some actual andouille. The shopkeeper could have warned us knowing it was going into a cassoulet.
Posted by: Harry Dawson | 3 Mar 2007 19:05:45
I decided to be adventurous in a restaurant in Paris the other day and ordered an Andouillette sausage. All I knew was that it was made of Chitterlings. I thought these sounded like a kind of bird. I'll never forget the horror of discovering what they really are. Nor will I ever forget the foul putrid taste, smell and texture. Not wanting to be rude I forced myself to eat two thirds of it after begging my friend to eat some of it for me. He decided to just concentrate on his beautifully cooked sirloin.
Posted by: Tom | 5 Mar 2007 16:44:52
Been there. Done that. Never again...
Posted by: andy | 22 Mar 2007 11:58:11
I can never get enough of the stuff since my hates the smell. She's off to dine with friends tonight so I rushed out to buy a pair, to eat with chips.
Lets not get started on Marmite!
Hint: the French eat it with strong mustard and lots of cracked pepper to cover the smell.
Posted by: Brian | 5 Apr 2007 16:08:27
Like many of the others here. I have just made the mistake of ordering Andouillette for lunch.
I am working in Normandy for two weeks and trying all the local delicacies! I had the choice between steak and andouillette. Well, I have had steak before and decided to be different. My stomach is made of cast iron and ate, only the other day, medium rare veal kidney.
WELL!!!! I smelt this dish coming before I saw it. It was put in front of me and the overwhelming smell of excrament hit my nostrils. My three other colleagues English, Belgian and American were not overly impressed with the smell. The sausage was pre cut and I had slices of the stuff on a plate. I managed one mouthful which was a very very strong pig flavour. The second mouthful made me gag and then I had a potato which had the same effect.
Well, at least I have tried it but I can safely say never again!!!!!
Posted by: Andy | 14 Jun 2007 13:46:29
I made the monumental mistake of ordering one of these last week, in a service station somewhere between Orleans and Paris. I just thought it would be a regional sausage, maybe spicy? Foolishly, I ordered it without the mustard.
The waiter brought what appeared to be a plate of steaming cow dung cunningly disguised as a mishapen sausage. In a rare display of French pity, he had brought the mustard anyway, in a little bowl on the side of the plate. Starving and thinking that it couldn't possibly taste as bad as it smelt, I tucked in with great gusto. At this point, words fail me. It was, without question or competition, the foulest thing I have ever eaten, or at least tried to eat. TonyW wrote "it looks, smells and tastes of poo" and I can't improve on that. I was so desperately hungry that I managed force down just over half of it before the gagging reflex kicked in and I admitted defeat. If I live a very bad life and end up in hell, at least I'll know what's for dinner.
Posted by: Andy Platt | 8 Jul 2007 20:25:14
I find this story quite amusing as I had the same experience in Chartres. I thought I would try the french delicacy even though I knew what it was before ordering. I was really surprised by the aroma and the overall taste of the sausage itself. I've eaten similar entrail-type dishes before but this one was undoubtedly the worst smelling and tasting.
Then again, I really like to eat perserved duck eggs (a Chinese delicacy) which I'm sure others do not like. So to those who covet the smelly sausage, I salute you!
Posted by: bigbear | 23 Jul 2007 08:38:32
Once Taseted never forgoten never never again the taste and smell.
Posted by: T Bowen | 31 Jul 2007 14:16:42
Obviously all of us have beeen thru the ordeal and want to find the comfort of others having suffered the same pain.
The different descriptions of the experience I have read here are a fantastic summary of what I felt when I tried that sausage that was described to me by the waitress as "different".
I wonder why french people still cook this, I would be genuinely interested in understanding what is so good about this dish that makes people keep preparing and eating it.
Whatever it is, I am travelling again next week to Paris, and I just can't wait to recommend this delicacy to my friends... It will be so much fun to see their faces...
Posted by: jose | 3 Aug 2007 22:02:31
