A word about food...

It has been a very interesting day, cuisine-wise. Several people have asked me recently about my eating habits in a city that is not known for being particularly vegetarian-friendly, so now seems to be an appropriate time for an explanation.

Being vegetarian in Paris is very easy. Being vegan in Paris would be very difficult. I never have any problems finding something to eat in the city because eggs, cheese, and other dairy products are diet staples here. Every cafe will offer some type of omelette or quiche on its menu. The fact that I am willing to eat fish and seafood occasionally gives me even more options. (A brief side-note: at home, we are constantly warned against eating too much tuna because of the potential mercury content. Here, no one seems to have gotten that memo -- is it because the fish come from a different water supply, and are therefore mercury-free, or do the French just not care, as with the whole smoking thing? I honestly don't know, so please let me know if you have any ideas!)

My host mom used to be vegetarian, so she has no problem cooking for me. A typical lunch might be a potato omelette with a green salad and bread, while dinner could be rice, fish, a grated carrot salad (more on this in a moment), bread, and a yogurt (ditto). I end up eating more fish than I would ordinarily like, but since I knew this was a distinct possibility before I came here, it really doesn't bother me. I tell myself that I'm making up for it in other ways -- my host mom only buys organic, locally grown produce, which is delicious in addition to being better for the environment!

Up until tonight, I had only encountered two slightly odd French culinary traditions. The first is the concept of the grated salad. This consists of either carrots, cabbage, or whatever that white cabbage-y looking stuff is, shredded and sprinkled with some kind oil (hazelnut is my host mother's oil of choice). It is somewhat coleslaw-esque, only without the mayonnaise. I'm not a huge fan, mostly because I don't particularly care for raw carrots or cabbage, but it's not bad.

I am much more in favor of the second one: yogurt. At home, yogurt means the very sweet, fruit-flavored, custardy stuff that comes in little Dannon containers. You can still get that here (sort of), but every day yogurt is plain. Not vanilla. Plain -- sort of like Greek yogurt, but not quite. You mix it with a spoonful of jam (homemade, at my house), honey, or sugar. It's pretty much the best thing ever, and I already know I'm going to miss it when I leave. Can you imagine mixing a spoonful of Smucker's jelly into a cup of plain yogurt from Safeway? Ew. Not at all the same.

This brings me to today. B, one of my friends from middle school, is visiting from Florence, and we both realized that we were craving pancakes -- not crepes, pancakes. Luckily, there is an amazing little 50s style diner down the street from me that serves American-style breakfast all day. Let them eat pancakes, anyone? We went, we ate, we were thrilled.

Flash forward to tonight. My host mom informed me that we would be having a "bricolage" dinner. This is roughly equivalent to leftovers night at home, except that the French never have leftovers...so it was more like a "I bought whatever looked good at the market today" sort of meal. This turned out to be oysters, a salad of beets, apple, and avocado, and noodles with foie. Yes, that is the same "foie" as in "foie gras". It means liver. Chicken liver, in this case, which my host mother informed me was not meat. Hmm. Where to begin...

Oysters look kind of gross, but they're not actually that bad -- mainly because you squirt them with lemon and swallow them whole, which only leaves you with a vaguely fishy aftertaste. I'm not a huge fan of either beets or avocados, but they're only vegetables (or fruits?) so I can deal. It was the foie that was the problem. It didn't actually taste bad, just like very concentrated chicken. However, they looked like little livers (at least with foie gras, it's disguised in the form of a pate), and the texture was very strange. I was very aware that I was eating something's liver. Yecch. Rather than be rude, I finished it, but if there's a next time I will find a way to politely excuse myself.

So now I am left with a slightly unsettled stomach, and I already finished my stash of Toblerones! (Another side-note: you have to love a country where Toblerones are the least expensive chocolate bar in the grocery store. Monoprix -- a.k.a. my new favorite place -- sells 3 packs for 1,50 euro.) What's a girl to do when there's no chocolate?

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P.S. If it wasn't already apparent, I have moved on from my "culture shock" incident earlier this week. It is definitely true that my honeymoon period is over, but I am realizing that I really do love Paris, despite the difficulties of living here or what I might perceive as its "faults". Every honeymoon has to come to an end, and I feel lucky that the fuller, more genuine view of this place that I am now developing is still a positive one overall.