Restaurant Ordering Mistakes

At least once you will order some unimaginable animal organ meat by mistake. When it happens to me, I think of it as an unscheduled French lesson! Sometimes it’s best not to know what’s under that sauce, because the French eat things we generally don’t eat (eels and horse meat, for example), plus they eat every part of every animal (brains, hearts, kidneys, marrow, intestines, ears, testicles, feet).

You might want to familiarize yourself with this list of menu terms:

andouille: tripe sausage
anguille: eel
asturienne: with livers
béatilles: mixed organ meats
beuchelle: creamed kidneys and sweetbreads
biche: doe = deer (female)
boudin: blood sausage (yep, just as it says)
boutargue: smoked fish eggs
brochette de cœurs: heart kabobs
bulot: sea snail
cagouille: land snail
caouanne: turtle
cargolade: grilled snails
céleri-rave: celery root
cerf: venison (as in Bennett)
cervelas: brain sausage
cervelle: brains
chasse: venison
cheval: horse meat
chèvre: goat
chevreuil: deer
civelles: baby eels (likely clubbed to death while still toddlers)
congre: giant eel
cou d’oie farci: goose neck skin stuffed with spicy meat
crépinette: sausage wrapped in intestine fat
crête de coq: crest on the head of a fowl
foie: liver
fritons: a spread of minced organ meats
gésiers: gizzards
graisserons: fried goose skin
gras-double: tripe simmered in wine with onions
grenouille: frog
hure de porc: pig’s head
jambonneau: pork knuckle
Jésus de Morteau: smoked pork sausage (unbelievable name!)
Joue: cheek
laitance: fish eggs
langue: tongue
marcassin: young wild boar
moelle: marrow
mouton: mutton
museau de veau: calf muzzle
navarin: mutton stew with turnips
oreilles: ears
pied: foot
pieuvre: octopus
poulpe: octopus
queue: tail
rillettes: spicy potted meat
ris: sweetbreads (pancreas or thymus gland)
rognon: kidney
rognons blancs: testicles (white kidneys -- what a euphemism!)
sanglier: wild boar
seiche farcies: cuttlefish stuffed with sausage and its own tentacles
tête: head
tortue: turtle
tripoux: mutton tripe
ventre: stomach
vessie: cooked in a pig’s bladder

But everything else is pretty safe. By the way, the photo at top is mutton feet.