On my last night in France,
I ate frogs legs. In fact, I almost missed out on enjoying this world
renowned French delicacy. After all, I was in a Chinese restaurant
(not exactly where you'd expect to find frogs legs on the menu) and
the menu was written in french. Maybe if the menu read "Legos de la
Frogeau", then I'd probably had noticed it myself . But it wasn't
anything like that.
Anyway, just when I was
about to settle for Lemon Chicken …
(I knew `citron' was lemon,
because Patrick drives a Citroen, and one day he mentioned that citroen
meant lemon. When I commented that a `lemon', when describing a car,
meant a `dud', he kindly pointed out to me that Citroen, the car,
had an `e' in it, but citron, the fruit, was spelt without an `e'.
So I couldn't help but think he was driving a Lemo`e'n.)
… so, just when I was about
to settle for Lemon Chicken, the Frogs Legs dish was brought to my
attention.
My first experience with
frogs legs was way back in 1967, at the tender age of 12. This was
when I was in my first year of secondary school, when I studied my
first year of French. Our French teacher, Miss McEvoy, thought it
would be very appropriate to have a French cuisine class. So a couple
of students went to the supermarket and came back with an assortment
of food which included French Sticks (bread) and canned frogs legs.
Not everyone in the class was game enough to taste the amphibian appendages,
but I certainly did.
All recollection of the
taste has long since been forgotten, but my latest experience got
a definite thumbs up from me. The meat had the consistency of soft
chicken meat, but had a mild fishy taste about it. And the price?
At 7.5 euros for about 10 legs, I figured that 5 frogs had made the
ultimate sacrifice for this curious tourist's appetite (valuing them
at a reasonable 1.5 euros per frog at retail).
I don't regret not having
snails (escargot) in France, because I'd eaten hundreds of them in
China, and I didn't need that experience again.
However, I realised (after
it was too late) that I hadn't eaten any Chocolate Coated Ants. This
was something Miss McEvoy mentioned was a French delicacy, though
I can't imagine how the experience would go.
On my plane trip to London,
I'd been given a few Chocolate Coated Coffee Beans (first time experience).
Then after I'd sucked off all the chocolate, I politely asked what
I should do with the coffee beans.
"You're supposed to chew
the coffee beans with the chocolate," was the much-too-late advice
I got from the amused passenger sitting on my left. "It tastes much
better that way."
So I spat them out, much
like I'd do if I was eating chocolate coated ants!
