There was no
mistaking the snails for anything except snails; but the other
articles were either currant buns or plain buns that had been made
in an unscreened kitchen.
Within were marble-topped tables of the Louie-Quince period and
stuffy wall-seats of faded, dusty red velvet; and a waiter in his
shirtsleeves was wandering about with a sheaf of those long French
loaves tucked under his arm like golf sticks, distributing his
loaves among the diners. But somewhere in its mysterious and
odorous depths that little bourgeois cafe harbored an honest-to-goodness
cook. He knew a few things about grilling a pig's knuckle--that
worthy person. He could make the knuckle of a pig taste like the
wing of an angel; and what he could do with a skillet, a pinch of
herbs and a calf's sweetbread passed human understanding.
Certain animals in Europe do have the most delicious diseases
anyway--notably the calf and the goose, particularly the goose of
Strasburg, where the pate de foie gras comes from. The engorged
liver of a Strasburg goose must be a source of joy to all--except
its original owner!
Several times we went back to the little restaurant round the
corner from the market, and each time we had something good. The
food we ate there helped to compensate for the terrific disillusionment
awaiting us when we drove out of Paris to a typical roadside inn,
to get some of that wonderful provincial cookery that through all
our reading days we had been hearing about.
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