It’s the scariest day of the year. I will be closing the window shutters so those little trick or treaters don’t think Im home. So I thought we could look into briefly some of the scariest French foods that we might run from the table screaming and saying we are never going back to that restaurant again, others love them and they are practically salivating when they see them on the menu.

Let’s start with the Andouillette. The name comes for the French word Andouille which comes from the Latin Inductile meaning the thing we introduce in the gut. Andouillette didn’t appear in a French dictionary until the 15th century.

It’s thought that the andouillette comes from the Gauls and was often prepared by Roman butchers. There was a tradition of the time to have small stuffed sausages cooking on the top of cauldrons.

This is a sausage made from parts of a pigs digestive tract. It can also have part of veal intestines or veal shortbreads as well. But from the 90’s until the summer of 2015 the use of veal shortbreads in Andouillette was banned for health reasons. This ban was partly due to mad cow disease.

Andouillette is cooked usually except in rare occasions that you might find it raw. There are seven main versions of Andouillette the Andouillette de Troyes, Andouillette de Jargeau, Andouillette Provencale, Andouillette de Cambrais, Lyonnaise Andouillette, Andouillette du Perigord and Andouillette a la Rouennaise.

It contains herbs, spices, other condiments and some wine or cognac depending on where it’s made.

The look isn’t appealing but it’s often the taste and smell that puts many of us off. It has a very strong pungent often off smelling and taste to it.

Sometimes they have a coating of breadcrumbs which can look appealing if you don’t know what it is. But often in butchers or charcuteries you will see them in jelly, lard or veal fat.

Whilst the andouillette doesn’t have a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) or AOC it has since 2016 had a label rouge for some manufacturers.

The is an association of lovers of the authentic andouillette that called cinq A. They were created in the 60’s and give out awards to butchers making andouillettes of high quality.

You will often find andouillette on menus grilled, pan-fried, baked or heated on the plancha as they say which is more or less a French BBQ. They are often served with fries, a puree, green beams, rice and usually with a sauce, often a white sauce of some kind.

Next up the Fromage de tete meaning cheese of the head or head cheese.

It’s also known as tete pressee, tete marbree, tete en fromage, civier, glace or pate de tete or tete fromage depending on where in France you are. In Belgium they actually call it Pressed Head.

Despite the translation to cheese of the head it is not a cheese or a dairy or milk product.

Fromage de tete is a pate or terrine made from all the parts of an animals head, usually a pig or wild boar and consists of the tongue, snout and cheeks in a jelly made from the animal along with pieces of carrot, pickles and onion along with many herbs like garlic, pepper, thyme, juniper berries and cloves.

When you see a Fromage de tete at a market in France it does not look very appealing to some of us and is often overlooked as something disgusting or old fashioned but to many French it takes pride and place on their weekly menu and is considered a staple.

Do the mash, do the monster mash, or in France do we do the Munster mash instead.

No we aren’t talking about the Munsters from the TV show of our childhoods it’s a cheese the Munster or munster-gerome.

Munster is a soft cows milk cheese that has a AOC, and PDO. Its name is thought to come from Latin Munester then to the German Munster.

It’s a cheese that comes from the Alsace region.

The story goes that in the 9th century and Irish monk who was traveling through the region left the recipe for the cheese with the Vosges the inhabitants of the region.

Another theory is that the recipe dates back to the time of Charlemagne and the monks of the Saint Gregory monastery who made it. The monastery was located in the city of Munster.

Munster is made from raw or pasteurized cows milk and has a soft interior with a washed rind that is round in shape. It has a particular pronounced smell. Its ripening is done over a minimum of 21 days during which the cheese is rubbed by hand every two days and stored in wet cellars at 11’c.

The smell of the Munster chees is quite strong but its taste Is mild. This smell does add to its scary factor. In fact the munster cheese is one that many French will never take on the train with them or any public transport to be honest. Although it hasnt as yet been banned from public transport unlike the Epoisses de Bourgogne which has been banned from Paris public transport.

Tete de veau translates as Veal head. It’s a dish usually prepared around Christmas time but can be found on menus all year round depending on where you are in France.

Around France there are many brotherhoods of or associations or friends of the tete de veau. Often when found on menus in France it will be the feature of that day. In fact one of our local restaurants will have a special lunch day for it and it’s always sold out.

Jacque Chirac the former president of France declared during his time as president that tete de veau was an honorable dish.

On the 21st of January every year there is a tradition of eating tete de veau to celebrate the beheading of Louis the XVI. This goes back to a tradition at the time of his reign when a pigs head was used to symboise Louis by cartoonists. He was called by the cartoonists the pig king. Then over time this was changed to the calfs head.

There are many ways the French eat tete de veau but usually it is eaten hot and usually in a white broth so as to keep its white look with the liquid diluted with flour, salt and vinegar and other herbs and spices to make a sauce for it. Usually it takes over 3 hours to cook.

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