Melia’s Love Affair with Meat... (with a random aside on gender relations)

It was inevitable... the meat-factor. I was going to have to eat meat when in Strasbourg, and I was afraid. I imagined big honking blood sausages tumbling over slabs of fatty ham and beef. I imagined my stomach revolting in the worst of ways. I imagined a battle. Little did I know that, while I would run into all of those things, in small quantities, what I would also discover, in time, would be the beauty that is (or rather, can be) meat. Not all meat, mind you. I still can’t do bacon with little bits of grizzle hanging off. It’s just not my thing. HOWEVER... I’ve come to like ham??

Before I start in on any meat-loving praise, I must make a distinction between US meat and the meat you find here, often fresh from the various Boucheries around town (ie. the meat stores). I was having a discussion with Alex about how I really don’t like ham, and the first thing he asked is, “Have you tried the ham here? Because it’s really different... it’s really good.” I stayed skeptical and he promised to make me try it at some point, saying he would lie about what it was. In fact, I did taste his ham-filled crêpe two days later, knowing full well it was ham, expecting not to like it, and... hmmm... that’s actually pretty good! Last week, Mme. made endives wrapped in fresh slabs of ham and baked in a gruyère sauce... and I had seconds! She was very excited, as I don’t normally take seconds and she equates seconds with enjoyment of the meal, not necessarily that I happen to be hungrier that day... unfortunate, as I’ve exclaimed many a time that I truly enjoyed the meal, but that I’m quite satisfied with what I’ve eaten. Sadly, this doesn’t come across as meaningfully as does a second helping.

In any case, I’ve come to crave Spaghetti Bolognaise (even though I’ve only ever had it from one of the cheap school eateries), I willingly ordered a meat-filled crêpe, craving the sausage that was said to be in it (sadly, I didn’t yet know that “lardons” means chopped bacon – Martina mistakenly told me she thought it was a kind of vegetable... so far from the truth! So I got a crêpe with delicious sausage that was partially ruined by the presence of fatty bacon bits), and I’ve come to crave meat at least once a day. This may also be due to the fact that Mme, while continuing to cook meat, has lightened up on the really heavy stuff, so I’ve been immensely enjoying what she does cook (she IS a very good cook, like Beth told me she’d be) and I look forward to dinners here, which have become somewhat infrequent, comparatively, due to my erratic schedule (I’m technically set up for 7 dinners a week with her, but it ends up being more like 4).

In any case... now, of course, I’m going to come home with a penchant for meat and #1, not be able to find anything of the quality here at a decent price, and #2, have no clue as to how to cook the stuff. I can do chicken, and I definitely still love that dear fowl, but Mme. hasn’t done any chicken because she’s afraid of the avian flu. I had it at Martina’s last sunday, courtesy of an Alsatian recipe Céline, with Martina’s assistance, made especially for Alex and I to introduce us to a “real” french Alsatian meal. It was after that meal – which lasted a good four hours, with food all the way through – that I felt fuller than I think I ever thought possible. I truly didn’t think I could walk home, for the weight of my belly!

In other fowl news, I had pigmy hen and duck for the first time the other night, when our group went out to a fancy dinner in Munster, paid for by the trip budget. The duck was such a deep red that I thought it was bacon and avoided it like the plague until Meg told me otherwise. It was smoked and, along with fried Camembert (sooo good!) and fresh salad, it added a nice flavor. The pigmy hen wasn’t as impressive... kind of seemed like chicken with a lot less of my favorite part... that dear ol’ white meat. And I’ve tasted better and moister marinade back home (thanks mom and dad!), but I wasn’t about to complain about the seemingly free four course meal we were being served, equipped with between-course palette cleanser (a ball of mulled-wine flavored sorbet) and tons of wine that Alex, our token male*, got to taste and ok before the bottles were served to the rest of the group.

*a note on the token male thing... it’s been really interesting to notice, having only one guy in the group, the little ways in which he is treated differently than the others. Beth always offers him the leftovers, skinny as he is, because, you know, guys’ll finish up, right? And then the whole wine-tasting bit. And other little things too. I asked Alex if it weirded him out and he said a part of him actually really liked all the chivalry stuff, but he knew he couldn’t never admit to liking it back in Portland. Ah, the land of equality seeking and liberalism.

Here, while many things are much more liberal than back home and there are probably more women in prominent positions on TV than in the US (at least from what I’ve seen), the “truc” (thing) here is “Vive la différence!” Long live the difference! Men are men, women are women, and everyone appreciates the difference. They don’t seek inequality; it’s more like they want to excel within their differences. Not that this is everyone, not that this is totally prevalent, especially as fads from the US and elsewhere infiltrate French society. But the women definitely seem to live up a certain femininity that would be sooo foreign in good ol’ Portland. Then again, the men are less of what the US would call “manly.” The style here for a lot of guys –which I actually really like—is slightly bell-bottomed pants, the clean-cut look, man-purses (fanny packs slung across like a messenger bag... and they’re everywhere, it’s nothing new), etc. And guys’ll do the bise thing (double cheek kiss). Not all of them, but they’re definitely not as afraid of contact with other guys, it seems.

Frankly, everyone says beware of french guys, but from what I’ve seen (and given, I haven’t had many late-night bar encounters, so my judgment may not be as well-rounded as it could be), they’ve got more poise and respect than what I think of as the typical American early-20s guy (and by typical, I of course mean all those *other* American guys out there, not LC guys, not really the ones I’m friends with... hence, a generalization to the extreme).