Living in France: I Wanted To Cook Like A French Woman. . .

There are things I’ve eaten in France that I would never have even considered in the States — since I don’t want to offend anyone, I won’t go into detail, but message me if you really want to know. I have a few recipes.

Meanwhile, I saw these petits cochons roses in a Toulouse shop window . . . bought four and quickly devoured them. I know, oink oink.

But back to cooking like a French woman . . . a friend was coming to dinner, a homesick German who talked nostalgically about hasenpfeffer. Hassen is German for hare, which he hunted as a boy back in Bavaria. Hasenpfeffer is basically a stew, often made with rabbit. An acceptable alternative, since I couldn’t see myself out hunting hare, or anything else.

Lapin a la Crème (rabbit in cream sauce)would have been more French and looked like less work, but I strive to please so I set off on a rabbit hunt.

My first thought was frozen rabbit from Intermarche. That way, I wouldn’t need to trot out my mangled French which is always a plus — but that seemed inauthentic somehow. Since I wasn’t about to go out and shoot a hare, I could at least get an authentic lapin.

Mentally rehearsing my request, I walked up to the village Boucherie. The butcher is often quite surly and, I suspect, dislikes Brits who butcher (sorry, couldn’t help myself) the language. He posts the day’s specials on the window outside. You ask for what you want, the butcher disappears into the back, returns with your poulet ou porc and slaps it on the counter.

Unfortunately, lapin was not listed on the window which meant I would have to ask for it which I hoped wouldn’t irritate him.

Soon it was my turn.

“Bonjour.” I smiled. It’s important in France that you don’t just brusquely make your demand without a formal greeting. “Avez-Vous, le lapin?” Should it have been la? I wasn’t sure.

He nodded and disappeared into the back room. So far, so good. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, short-lived.

He returned holding aloft a rabbit by its hind legs. A skinned rabbit; all glistening, pink and naked. I had to avert my eyes.

The butcher put the rabbit on the scale and said something I didn’t understand.

I smiled inanely. My mum, who was very deaf, smiled the same way when she hadn’t heard. It meant she often smiled inappropriately. She’d even laugh uproariously at something quite unfunny. It used to irritate me — living in France, I now understand.

How did I ask for just a small piece? Boneless preferably. Perhaps wrapped in plastic? No feet and definitely no head.

Behind me, the crowd were pressing in, murmuring. Someone laughed. I was the morning’s entertainment.

“Coupe?” The butcher waved a knife over the rabbit, then removed an internal organ and cocked his head to one side.

I tried not to look at the rabbit’s s little face.

“Je voudrais un petit morceau,” I finally managed.

The butcher stared at me. More sniggers from the audience.

“Tres petite,” I said.

While all this was going on, the bell on the door rang and more customers crowded in behind me. An old woman moved next to me, brought her face to within a kissing distance of my ear and rattled off something which, Bien sure, I didn’t understand.

A man to my left spoke in heavily accented English.

“He tell you it is not possible to…” he hesitated. “…ave a small piss. You must have everything.”

I gulped. “Even the head?”

He grinned.

The old woman clutched my arm, returned her face to my ear and rattled off something else. The man to my left spoke again.

“She say she will tich . . . learn you ‘ow to cook like French woman.”

The butcher waited, knife poised over the rabbit. I had a mental flashback to Jim, one of the kids’ childhood pets, standing in his hutch eating lettuce from my hand. I wanted to cook like a French woman, I really did. But not if it involved dealing with a naked rabbit with a head.

“Please tell him I’m sorry,” I said to the guy, then face burning and rabbitless, I pushed my way out of the shop.

A few weeks later, after I’d told a French friend my story. she invited me over for dinner. There in the middle of the table, a long narrow copper roasting pan and, nestled under a blanket of gravy and vegetables was . . . you guessed it. And, yes, I have to say it was delicious.