Bien cuit : well done
French people don't cook their meat! It's very strange.
I went out this weekend with Josh and some real live Parisians to a great little restaurant near Place D'It. I went for the duck, because I love duck and there's no ordering a French meal without meat...California is definitely cooler in that respect. Vegan options?? I doubt if they even have a word for vegan in French. Anyways, the waitress gave me a funny look when I said 'bien cuit', because no one ever says that in this country!
My flatmate Antoine, from Grenoble, would cook us dinner sometimes (he's really good, his dad is a chef) and when I would say bien cuit he'd be like 'No no no no no, you cannot eat it like that!' and would hand me a bloody slab that I could not touch haha. Les français. My friends at the restaurant informed me that it loses all it's flavor if you cook it. In my head I'm thinking....yea....the flavor of blood! yuck! No more meat man. Moral of the story, my duck was not well done, it was pink haha and I find that highly amusing. There are just no translations for some things.
Working with my recently developed 'scavenger' lifestyle however, where I eat whatever I am offered, I managed to get some of it down, and donated the rest to the happy meat eaters surrounding me. The scavenger lifestyle comes with lack of funds. It started this summer in Santa Barbara when I had recently become 'independent'. It's less pretentious, however I will never be a meat eater. I was born wanting nothing to do with eating animals. My first argument with my parents I can remember is over me refusing to eat the chicken on my plate. They wouldn't let me leave the table! I can still see it. My mom was pretty much on my side.
When I was 5 I told my mom one night before I went to bed that I believed that when we die we become animals. I was more enlightened as a child. But, it's hard to have morals when you're hungry.
I say that in the lightest way possible, I do not pretend to have suffered any real hardship or hunger in my privileged life. However, I understand in the shallowest of ways that if you're really hungry, you eat what is given to you. But, in this moment I have the good fortune to be able to choose what I eat. Therefore, I am going to remember what I already knew as a child:
In a past life, I was probably a slaughtered chicken.
Au revoir for now, meat. It really hasn't been that great.
French people don't cook their meat! It's very strange.
I went out this weekend with Josh and some real live Parisians to a great little restaurant near Place D'It. I went for the duck, because I love duck and there's no ordering a French meal without meat...California is definitely cooler in that respect. Vegan options?? I doubt if they even have a word for vegan in French. Anyways, the waitress gave me a funny look when I said 'bien cuit', because no one ever says that in this country!
My flatmate Antoine, from Grenoble, would cook us dinner sometimes (he's really good, his dad is a chef) and when I would say bien cuit he'd be like 'No no no no no, you cannot eat it like that!' and would hand me a bloody slab that I could not touch haha. Les français. My friends at the restaurant informed me that it loses all it's flavor if you cook it. In my head I'm thinking....yea....the flavor of blood! yuck! No more meat man. Moral of the story, my duck was not well done, it was pink haha and I find that highly amusing. There are just no translations for some things.
Working with my recently developed 'scavenger' lifestyle however, where I eat whatever I am offered, I managed to get some of it down, and donated the rest to the happy meat eaters surrounding me. The scavenger lifestyle comes with lack of funds. It started this summer in Santa Barbara when I had recently become 'independent'. It's less pretentious, however I will never be a meat eater. I was born wanting nothing to do with eating animals. My first argument with my parents I can remember is over me refusing to eat the chicken on my plate. They wouldn't let me leave the table! I can still see it. My mom was pretty much on my side.
When I was 5 I told my mom one night before I went to bed that I believed that when we die we become animals. I was more enlightened as a child. But, it's hard to have morals when you're hungry.
I say that in the lightest way possible, I do not pretend to have suffered any real hardship or hunger in my privileged life. However, I understand in the shallowest of ways that if you're really hungry, you eat what is given to you. But, in this moment I have the good fortune to be able to choose what I eat. Therefore, I am going to remember what I already knew as a child:
In a past life, I was probably a slaughtered chicken.
Au revoir for now, meat. It really hasn't been that great.
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