The Bloody French and their Tripe.


Tuesday 16/11/2004

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Diary and Notes

In my quest for unbridled culinary pleasure and my joy in gloating in this blog about how great my life is, I aim to eat the best and the best is what I eats. Today I went to a restaurant I've been to once before and I know is truly wonderful - cafe Diwan, an Anatolische restaurant (I think that's in Turkey) where some time ago I had an amazing kofta dish with tomato sauce. Today, in my bad German I read the menu (taking extra care this time) and saw something that made my heart just fill with joy, three words: 'Lamm von knocken'.

Now 'Lamm von knocken' is not a famous Prussian general or a world war one fighter ace, but means lamb on the bone and is perhaps the thing I wanted more than anything to hear. The story goes back to the Lamb Arafat meal. When shopping for my lamb I tried to buy some on the bone and was told in no unceratin terms by a lady at one butchers 'Nein, lamb ist besser ohne knocken!' and she tried to fob me off with a giant lump of frozen lamb with no bones. But I want bones, meat is tastier with bones, its a simple mathematatical equation:

Meat+Bones=Deliciousness

We all know it's true (except perhaps this butcher). This is why lamb shanks are so popular in Britain at the moment. This is why those piddling little chicken breasts, health concious British people spend extortionate amounts of money on, are so bland. However, getting hold of meat on the bone in Germany is nearly impossible. You can buy bones, giant big bags of them for a few cents, I imagine people want them for stock, but you can't get meat on the bone anywhere. So I saw this 'Lamm von knocken' and thought it meant lamb on the bone and said yippeeee! I had a go at pronouncing the name of the dish (something like Lukic Spikti but I forget) and said I'll have one of those.

I really should learn some German.

It wasn't lamb on the bone, but lamb from the bone. They chop the meat off the bone before they cook it. In fact what they did was make a giant steaming brown log from strips of lamb, with carrots and peas and nuts in the mix as well. Can you guess what it looked like?

Now it tasted excellent, but we eat with our eyes as well as our mouths and the very sight of it was bringing back really unpleasent memories of the time I had an andouillette (a tripe sausage) in France. I could almost smell the tripe, taste the foul stench of cow gut and even though this thing tasted nothing like the tripe sausage I just couldn't eat it. It was a crying shame. I managed about a half, some rice, salad and some excellent home made bread. I apologise to the cafe, it wasn't your fault, your log was tasty, it's the bloody French and their tripe sausage what did it, it was the bloody French.

Are you laughing at my misfortune? I believe it's probably some sort of karmic payback for me being so rude about Americans yesterday. I have amended yesterday's site and hope that the steaming log was pennance enough. Hopefully there's no bad karma involved in insulting the French. In the bubbling wheel of Samsara we all turn, but throwing stones at the French is permitted by cosmic law.


Cake Blog

A florentine today. Chocolate, almonds and a sharp jam taste. Very strange.


Menu

  • Olives,
  • Humus,
  • Luktic Spikititkit,
  • Bread,
  • Salad,
  • Rice.


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