The weekend of three tails

We spend every weekend at our home in the countryside of Normandie. Denis needs the change from the frenetic pace of his weekday professional life in Paris. And I need to garden!

So that we don't spend the bulk of our country Saturday running errands, I do the shopping in Paris on Friday. This means that I must likewise plan our menus for the weekend. Often this entails a foray into some of my favorite cookbooks to explore for new recipes that reflect the season and what's available in the potager at the moment.

For last weekend, here's what I planned. Steaks of charolais beef, grilled, served over a 'stuffing' of mushroom duxelles with jus de la queue de boeuf, literally, "juice of oxtail." This dish I picked because I hadn't served Denis any beef in a long time, and he loves it. Next, roast pheasant with a sauce that required a veal stock reduction. For the veal stock I needed...a veal tail. Finally, in The French Menu Cookbook by the late, great Richard Olney, I found a recipe that would surely stir Denis at the level of his Auvergnate roots, and which pleased me because it contained a number of winter vegetables all of which I had in the garden. This pièce de résistance was a rustic potée of pig's ears and...tails.

Now, before you gag in horror, take a moment to consider that some of the most sought-after cuisine in the finest restaurants is in fact the rustic cuisine of the poor people of the world. In thrifty France, the cook traditionally made use of every last bit of everything, letting nothing go to waste. This thriftiness is the basis of much of great French cuisine. Certainly, if you're going to slaughter a poor pig, it is best to make use of all of it. I'll conclude my argument in favor of the potée by reminding you that Richard Olney was one of the greatest cooks that ever lived (he inspired much of the cooking style at Alice Water's famous restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley). If Richard Olney says it's good, that's good enough for me.

So on Friday, I asked my butcher as he wrapped up my steaks, pheasant, salt pork, and veal and ox tails, whether he knew where I could find pig's ears and tails. He smiled with amusement at this, my latest request. I have a reputation for strange requests at my butcher shop, requests that nevertheless show that I am deeply into cooking and that I'm sure are all the more amusing for coming from an American. At a charcuterie, he told me, giving me the name of one. (My butcher shop caters to a clientele much too bourgoise to carry anything as plebeian as pork extremities.)

Although I had already been in the neighborhood of this charcuterie once that morning, my obsession to execute this recipe was such that I trudged the kilometer back there. To my disappointment, they had neither item. However, at a butcher shop nearby, I did find pigs ears (but no tails). I bought a pair (80 centimes!). I confess that, looking at them, I couldn't help thinking of how all we do with these in the U.S. is feed them--dried and smoked--to our dogs. On the way home, I visited three more shops to no avail.

Back at home, I unpacked my weary feet from their shoes, and then proceeded to pack up all my groceries for the weekend in two enormous market paniers and two thermally insulated bags. By the time I've finished preparing everything for our weekends in the country, the hallway is lined with an assemblage of bags of food, garden tools, art supplies and other indispensables for our weekend. In short, it is a major mobilisation.

On the long drive out to Normandie, I told Denis what I had in mind for one of our dinners. He was excited. We agreed that we'd continue the tail search in the village of Doudeville (near our house) on Saturday morning.

We perused the Saturday morning market without finding any trace of the tails. By now, I had noticed that people looked at me a bit oddly when I asked for them. I was beginning to be traumatized by this, and had started equivocating my request. "I know that this is a rather peculiar question," I would say, "but do you by any chance have...?"

No luck. Denis and I proceeded to the one supermarket in town to buy bottled water and other sundries. As we approached the butcher counter at the back of the store, I exclaimed to Denis. They were selling wild, hunted partridge for only $2.95! This same bird was selling for $15 in Paris.

"Shall we get some?" Denis asked. "Yes," I responded, "but only if they prepare them," for the birds were lying in the case fully feathered. Denis pointed to the sign. For a dollar fifty (euro fifty) per bird extra they would clean them. We agreed that he would stand in line for the birds while I continued the rest of the shopping.

I had gone up one aisle and was returning toward the butcher counter when I heard Denis excitedly calling my name. "Barbara! Barbara! Ils ont des queues de cochon!" They had pig's tails! I hurried up the counter to see. The young butcher proffered a tail for my inspection. It consisted of the tail itself with a hunk of meat attached at the base. "There's quite a lot to eat on that," I remarked to Denis. I had been expecting just the stubby little tail itself. "We'll take two."

The young butcher had been watching us. "These are a gift," he said, writing "no charge" on the package. "But you'll have to come back later in the day for the cleaned partridges." I made some kind of comment about how this was going to be the cheapest meal we'd ever eaten.

We returned home, triumphant in our tail quest. As it rained all afternoon, Denis painted and I amused myself in the kitchen until he went back into town to collect the partridges around 5 o'clock. He came back a short time later with the birds. He commented that the butcher was really a very nice young man. He said that the fellow had explained that hedidn't know whether Denis had noticed the sign, but he was obligated to charge for their preparation. However, "not to worry, Monsieur, I only charged you for the preparation of one bird." Denis, a bit befuddled by the extent of this unexpected largesse, responded that he was very kind (Vous êtes tres gentil, Monsieur...")

Denis left the kitchen to tend to the fire. I thought about what he had just told me, and suddenly I whooped with laughter at my realization. I yelled for Denis. "You know why he said that? He thought we were poor! So poor that we had to eat pig's tails!"

I reviewed the morning's events. We had been in the supermarket in our rather grubby weekend clothing. Denis had come running after me in excitement (Barbara! They have pig's tails!). My comments about how much meat was on them, and about having a "free dinner." Then we'd been able to "splurge" on the three-dollar partridges...The poor young country butcher obviously came to the logical conclusion: we were near indigents pooling our pennies for a scrap of protein.

Denis and I got enormous pleasure out of this incident. We repeated pieces of it throughout the evening and chuckled every time. I know that both of us were rather proud that we were mistaken for poor people in search of a scrap of pork for the evening pot. Much more dignity in cooking up a rustic dish with our own vegetables and thus partaking in a heritage of fine, earthy cooking born of a healthy thrift than in being perceived as snooty Parisian country weekenders nibbling on foie gras and vol-au-vent purchased carry-out from the local traiteur. Give me real food, prepared by my own hands, any day.

For recipes for the potée and other rustic, country French fare, see the Dans la cuisine page.

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