Alas though! no one had warned me about French oysters, and
once--just once--I ate some, which made two mistakes on my part,
one financial and the other gustatory. They were not particularly
flavorous oysters as we know oysters on this side of the ocean.
The French oyster is a small, copper-tinted proposition, and he
tastes something like an indisposed mussel and something like a
touch of biliousness; but he is sufficiently costly for all purposes.
The cafe proprietor cherishes him so highly that he refuses to
vulgarize him by printing the asking price on the same menu. A
person in France desirous of making a really ostentatious display
of his affluence, on finding a pearl in an oyster, would swallow
the pearl and wear the oyster on his shirtfront. That would stamp
him as a person of wealth.
However, I am not claiming that all French cookery is ultra-exorbitant
in price or of excessively low grade. We had one of the surprises
of our lives when, by direction of a friend who knew Paris, we
went to a little obscure cafe that was off the tourist route and
therefore--as yet--unspoiled and uncommercialized. This place
was up a back street near one of the markets; a small and smellsome
place it was, decorated most atrociously. In the front window,
in close juxtaposition, were a platter of French snails and a
platter of sticky confections full of dark spots.
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