The truth about calf head on a plate

My first week at La Cardere, on one of the occasions when I burst into speech, I talked about eating frogs and about the calf head horror. I learned two very significant facts. First, frogs are one of the exceptions to not eating with one's fingers in France. Second, the picture of the calf's head on a plate was a joke.

Okay, so the next restaurant we visited offered the calf head dish, and I ordered it. Sure enough, it was a bowl with chunks of meat, chunks of fat, and assorted vegetable chunks. The meat had a unique taste and texture, but it wasn't that great. I regretted missing out on some of the better choices on the menu, but at least I satisfied my curiosity and finished off my list of Bresse regional cuisine. The chicken wins.

Claude told us all about the famous chickens of Bresse. The top of the line is the one they save for Christmas holiday feasts. These are castrated males (chapon?) that weigh up to four kilograms and are sold for around a hundred euros apiece. Holy shit! Like the rest of the Bresse chickens, they run around in the grass for most of their lives. The law requires that to carry the Bresse label they must have (I hope I remember this right) ten square meters of grass per chicken and a little house to run into at night. Then, a few weeks before slaughter, they are confined indoors and plumped up with corn. Driving through Bresse is like cruising a bright green fabric with white dots. The blue legs are not visible from the road.

Sadly, Claude didn't have any frog stories.