Red Bikes (Won a month in France), Day 9
They say you can’t go wrong in France when it comes to food, but you can go sort of wrong if you don’t know how to order-- which is how I ended up with a plate of cuttlefish in an otherwise sweet little restaurant in Pantaleon, population 91. The Auberge (inn) where we ate was not in any guide book and the proprietor looked down right shocked, as did the other patrons, when Rooster and I walked in.
Cuttlefish, as defined in the Wikipedia on-line encyclopedia, is a sea creature “very reminiscent of (the) domestic cat.” It comes to the plate chopped in pieces that look like a combo of calamari tentacles and chicken innards. The encyclopedia, which is quite perky about cuttlefish, claims they can be raised as pets in home aquariums and that they will exhibit behaviors like “resting, pouncing on moving prey and begging owners for food.” Aside from the whole fur thing, the main difference between the feline and the cuttlefish seems to be that cuttlefish will try to eat other cuttlefish. Well, maybe they can palate it, but I struggled.
Nonetheless, the restaurant was adorable with sturdy wooden tables, lace hanging over every window and we did quite well on the cheese course, once again shocking the inn keeper, this time in our capacity to ingest a shingle sized hunk of Roquefort in a single bound. We drove home in a lethargic cheese coma and that was that for our off-road adventure eating. From now on, we plan to use the Michelin red book and bring a food dictionary that can translate English too.
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