We had spent so much time at the Louvre I didn’t have time to change before catching a taxi to dinner. I was embarassed to be wearing Levis, considering the tuxedoed waiters and elegant art Nouveau decor of Au Pied du Cochon. As we were led up to the third floor, I wondered, “Is this the Levis floor? The stupid Americans floor?” Later, when I saw that there was a fourth floor above us, I was strangely relieved.
By now I had realized that no French people could understand my French accent, so I had begun communicating only in mime. Luckily, French people speak perfect mime. I pointed at “Crab” on the menu and mimed, “Hit it with a hammer?” The waiter mimed back, “Yes. Hit it with a hammer and big chisel.” So we ordered langostines instead. they were much more tender and sweet than the ones we had in London.
As the name would suggest, Au Pied du Cochon is famous for trotters, or pig’s feet. I am no stranger to ham hocks, so I was cool with that, and even looking to be a little daring. I was checking out an assortment plate of trotter, ear, tail, and brawn. Brawn? What the hell was brawn? I gestured to the waiter, and he produced a small porcelain pig, clearly kept on hand for this very purpose. He pointed to the snout (brawn), foot, ear, then very clearly pointed at the pig’s ass and said, “cul”. Now I know that in Italian, culo means asshole. I came on this trip with the intention of stretching my culinary boundaries, but there was no way I was eating pig’s asshole. I mimed, “Long, curly thing, or little round puckered thing?” He was very clear that it was the long, curly thing, and I was now this waiter’s new favorite person because I had mimed “pig’s asshole” to him.
When my plate arrived, it was just a big bunch of meat coated in a light dusting of breadcrumbs (pig’s asshole, delicately seasoned in a light coating of breadcrumbs…it’s very thinly sliced). But there was no long, curly thing. The tail was straight, and looked way more like a pig’s penis than anything else (pig’s pizzle, in a light dusting of breadcrumbs…very thinly sliced). I did read once that pig’s penises are curly too (my brain is full of ephemera). I chose not to mime “Big, giant pig’s dick” to the waiter, and instead gestured, “Pull it and stretch it out straight?” All of the waiters laughed really hard and copied this movement. Now I was really wondering if they had given me pig’s dick.
Actually, the pig’s tail, or whatever it was, had the most meat on it of any of the uhhh, “parts”, and tasted exactly like ham hocks. The pig’s nose, which was my waiter’s favorite, had just a few little nuggets of meat, but it was way better than ham hocks. I just hope that stuffing really was breadcrumbs. The pig’s ear was all fat and gristle, useless for anything other than freaking people out. The trotter had way less meat than a ham hock. It was tiny, but I noticed that plates containing only the trotter had much larger ones. It was good, but I felt really ruthless attacking the plate with the vigor required. It was kind of labor-intensive. Bob had some mystery cut of meat that was fantastic, and much easier to eat than my big he-man plate.
We ordered creme brulee and a dessert platter. The creme brulee was in a wide, shallow dish to maximize the shatteringly thin caramelized sugar. Bob’s dessert platter had a teensy crème brulee, blackcurrant ice cream with a hint of violet, mango sorbet, a peach quenelle and a brownie. It was topped with an adorable little meringue pig.
I realized that I had left my camera in my coat, which had been checked. I mimed to the waiter, and he brought it to me so I could photograph the dessert plate. I mimed, “If an order of trotters comes out, I would like to take a picture.” He mimed back, “I am a pig. Take a picture of my foot.”As we waited for our taxi, Bob said, “I will never forget the sight of that fancy French waiter dancing around, waving his foot in the air and snorting like a pig.”
