A Dinner to Remember

I once wrote about how I was forced to eat a little fish with its skin, bones, eyes and all, so that I could learn to eat whatever was put in front of me. That lesson, 12 years later, is still working. This past week, I went with a whole bunch of friends out to a French farmhouse for a few days of retreat from city life. When we checked in, the owner told us the menu for the two dinners he would be serving us...as he described it, we thought it might be best to NOT translate for the 20 non-French speakers who are not that accustomed to um, how shall we say, French "delicacies."

The first meal was absolutely DELICIOUS. It began with a smoked duck salad. Most of our friends were from Texas and several were hunters, and had eaten plenty of duck before as a result. They said it was some of the best duck they'd ever had. I haven't had much duck, but I would agree that it was some good eats.

The main course was turkey breast and rice with a creamy mushroom sauce. When the chef saw how much we loved the gravy, he kept bringing out more and more gravy boats. I smiled when I heard one table exclaim later that "there may or may not have been SIX gravy boats at our table!" Someone else at the table picked one of the boats up and showed...they were all mopped dry by the scrumptious bread!

After the obligatory cheese course, out came the dessert. When the chef had detailed the menu for us, he'd told us a "fruit tarte" would be served for dessert. I had imagined two large apple tartes. Did I ever have that wrong! He'd made 25 individual fruit tarts of varying flavors: lemon, apple, strawberry, mirabelle, apricot, multi-fruit. It was the perfect end to a perfect meal.

Which made the group so excited about the dinner to come the next evening. They talked all day long about how much they were looking forward to dinner. Hugs and I kept cutting eyes at each other across the way because we knew what was coming, unfortunately.

We were in sugar beet country, so a beet salad was the first course. I like beets. I thought I could fill up on the salad before the main course that I was dreading. Then the salad came out...

Beets is one thing. A semi-poached egg with a beet that has then been jellied is another thing. I wish I had a video to watch the kids reactions as they stared down at the wiggly "salad" on their plates. One guy even refused to be served any. I gave it a try. The beet itself was good...the jelly was not. The egg was worse. The combination of it all...just not good. I ate the whole thing, and decided by the end that I really did not enjoy it. Only two people out of the whole 25 liked it and went back for a second helping.

I was going to be hungry tonight...

The main course came out. One of the girls took a bite of the meat and exclaimed, "It's so tender! What kind of meat is this?" I answered, "Beef..." The others at my table were chewing away and remarking about the tenderness and the unique (in a positive way) flavor.

"Is it really beef? I've never had any that tasted like this..." I assured her that it was definitely beef as it really did come from a cow. She looked down at her plate and laughed and said, "Is it cow tongue?!"
"Yep." The guy across from me, who'd already eaten half (and enjoyed it), looked up at me as all the blood drained from his face. "Really?" he asked. "Really." They'd all had cuts of it that didn't have the shape like mine, which straight up looked like tongue (as you can see above). I'm not sure if I made a mistake by eating the tip first, as that was the most disgusting part. I could feel the taste buds against my own tongue, and I nearly gagged. But I continued on, and ate the whole thing.

I'll say this...It's better than liver. But that's about all I can say.

The potatoes had been boiled in a white wine, which was too strong for me, so I couldn't even eat those. And the sauce had pickles in it. PICKLES. No mopping that up with bread...so I was still pretty hungry when dessert came out. Everyone was looking miserable and quite hungry, and so thankfully, a good chocolate crunch can make just about anyone happy.
Not the best picture in the world, but man oh man was it good! It lifted our spirits and then the laughter about the cow tongue really set in. One friend even accepted a dare to put one of them on top of her own tongue.
Well, from now on, whenever someone asks about the worst thing I've ever eaten, I can tell them about this dinner. We were glad they served it on the second night, because the build up after the first meal made the whole thing funnier. Had they been served cow tongue and jellied egg beet salad on the first night, they might not have even showed up for dinner on the second night!

There was lots of late night snacking around a bon fire that evening so that we wouldn't go to bed hungry. And a true French experience of best and worst meals ever for our friends to remember from their summer in France.