2009: Yeehaw Europe! (France)

"We'll have a treat tonight," Caroline says. She leads me into a butcher shop about the size of my self-storage unit back home, big enough for three customers. Maybe four in the summer. Anyone else has to wait outside.

The bulk of the tiny shop is dedicated to the butcher's display and work area - steaks and roasts of every possible cut, laid out so artfully that even raw meat looks appetizing - which is not quite normal for me. All up the wood paneled walls, jars of pickles and condiments... shelves almost up to the ceiling, testing the agility of the stout, middle aged butcher in his neat white smock.

The centerpiece of this display is an ancient grinder with a large, red knob at the end of a long handle. Next to it, three large pieces of meat - maybe six or eight pounds each - hang from butcher hooks. One of them is smaller and the bottom of it is jagged. The butcher yanks it off its hook as Caroline talks to him in quick French that I can't understand. The meat is redder and leaner than any beef I remember seeing.

"He has everything here," Caroline says, "all the cuts." The butcher drops about a kilo of red flesh into the grinder and turns the handle less laboriously than I expected. "But his speciality is tartare."

"I love it," I reply. "I never eat it at home." Why is that, I'm wondering... we have butchers in California, I could eat raw meat at home if I knew what cut to ask for...

Caroline isn't listening to me. She's giving me an uncertain look. I've known Caroline since I was eighteen. I know that look... lips parted, head cocked slightly to one side, far eye squinted, near eye intent... it means she can't decide whether I'll be happy or mortified by what she has to say and so she doesn't know how to start. "Of course," long pause, "everything in his shop is horse, so that makes it even more special."

"Haha, right." I give her a good smirk. Horse. I'm not falling for that. Only poor people eat horse. Like prisoners eat rats, and old people sometimes eat cat food. She babbles some more instructions and the butcher runs another small piece through the grinder to top off our scale. It really is awfully lean.

I let my eyes wander. On the wall is an industry-style poster showing a wad of raw ground meat, patted into a circle and flavored with capers, cornichons, shallot, dijon mustard, mayonnaise, salt and fresh ground pepper. And in the background... oh god. In the background, a profile view of a nice, lean, healthy looking horse. No, she was kidding, right? On the other wall - now I see it - a framed shot of a race horse in the winner's circle. "You weren't kidding," I say.

"No, I wasn't."

Raw beef (beef tartare) is already a bit of a stretch for someone from California. I've been in restaurants back home where they're so paranoid about undercooked meat that they give you a special warning if you order your burger rare. You practically have to sign a release form to get them to give it to you that way. It hadn't occurred to me that we would be eating raw horse for dinner.

"You ate all those other things in Asia - snakes, the jumping creatures, what do you call them?"

"Crickets."

"Yeah, creekets. And dog... ohlala. You ate all those things, so why you shouldn't eat horse?" Caroline's English is excellent. A pleasant blend of 80% British accent and 20% American. She's a little out of practice now and occasionally flubs a word or mixes up a syntax, but basically fluent.

"No, it's true... I'll try it. I just hadn't... horse? Really?"

"Jean-Patrick said I shouldn't tell you, but I don't do that. You should know what you eat."

"Yeah, no... I'll definitely eat it. I just need a few minutes to get used to the idea."

As it turns out, raw ground horse patties are pretty good. Who would have guessed? I treat Caroline's family to nearly-raw ahi tuna a few days later, seared in a mustard and sesame seed crust. It's nice to have time to cook regular meals, nice to have a big talkative family to eat them with (the girl in the picture loves raw horse, by the way, almost as much as she loves furry blue cheeses). New Year's Eve was a full-on six course meal eaten over a period of about four hours with cigarette breaks between each course and people jumping up to go to the bathroom like they would during the commercial break of a good TV show.

Before Paris (Villemomble, actually, which is just outside Paris) I had a nice couple of days in Dublin, saw the two cathedrals there and heard the organist in St. Patrick's practicing his Handel. Next is a week in Morocco, starting tomorrow, where I think the strangest thing anyone will feed me is pigeon which, I hear, tastes a lot like chicken.