As some of you might know, I've been experimenting with a sort of pseudo-vegetarianism for the last few months. While I've been avoiding pork, beef, chicken, turkey, and most fish, I've still been eating anything that I can feel confident was never pumped full of antibiotics, was not raised or harvested in a horribly unsustainable way, and I've been trying to eat meat just less in general. In Alaska this basically means that I was eating moose, bear, halibut and rockfish that either I caught, my sister or her husband caught, or my sister's friends caught. The idea behind this was that, sure, the animal suffered in its death- that's a reality that you have to accept to be an omnivore- but if I eat it less frequently it can still be more sustainable, and if I know where the food came from, I can greatly reduce the amount of chemicals I inadvertently eat, and hopefully reduce my global footprint somewhat. I know that traveling inherently increases your global footprint, and that in a lot of ways some of my actions will contradict some of my other actions, but in the words of Walt Whitman, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)" I think all I can do is make the efforts I can where I can.
That being said, Lyon is considered the gastronomic capital of France, and I've been thinking 'when in lyon...'. For the last few weeks since I decided to travel to France I was wondering what to do about this issue- how do I enjoy all that Lyon has to offer, while still trying to avoid the meats that I was avoiding in the USA? Luckily this issue isn't as big of a deal as it could be if I were permanently residing here. Since I'm only staying here for three months, I figure I can digress from my otherwise obviously iron clad and stead-fast resolutions (har har).
My first few days here I sustained myself by eating some basic bread, tomatoes, and some spreadable laughing cow cheese. I quickly branched out and bought a bag of spaghetti and some spaghetti sauce, and added that to my diet. But, after I slightly recovered from my jet lag, I was realizing that when filling my days with mile upon mile of walking, filling my belly with bread and cheese was simply not going to be sufficient. And so I started eating out.
I haven't tried anything to daring yet, although I did see grenouilles on the menu the other day, but I have been willing to order something even when I don't understand all of the ingredients listed in the description on the menu, which I feel is an accomplishment and a learning experience in of itself.
My first meal out was what, in the USA, we call French onion soup, although here it's just cheese onion soup- gratinée à l'oignon.
I haven't done my research on this, but my impression has always been that this soup was a wintertime soup- eaten when all that was left in the house were some onions, stale bread, and some cheese. This is a brilliant way to eat stale bread- soak it in oniony soup and cover it in cheese. The cheese, which is sprinkled on top, melts into a pretty solid layer that keeps the soup hot. Needless to say I burnt my mouth in several places. It was perfect because I had spent that afternoon wandering about on the hill above Lyon, the wind had been blowing, and I was actually feeling remarkably chilly for it being an August night. The next thing that came was bavette sauce échalote et gratin dauphinois. Basically this was a thin steak smothered in a brown shallot gravy and potatoes smothered in cheese. The sauce on the steak was delicious- I want it on everything- although the steak wasn't as tender as I had hoped. After a few months of politely and sadly declining my mom's dishes such as filet mignon and bleu cheese, I have to admit that the tenderness and quality of the steak didn't *quite* live up to my expectations. I'm not sure if that was intentional, or if the steak should have been more tender, but I do know it was more chewy than I would have liked. The potatoes were delicious, although since everything- the soup, the steak, the potatoes- were all served in such a high quantity, I simply could not finish them- let alone allow myself to get the dessert that was supposed to come with the menu. I was just stuffed- remarkable, since all I had had earlier in the day was a few pieces of bread and some laughing cow cheese.
Since that meal I've gone out a few times with Dan. We got crepes one time- his had tuna and olives on it, and mine had tomato sauce and mozzarella. Last night we somehow ended up at an Italian restaurant where Dan got a caprese salad and I got gnocchi au trois fromages- pretty tasty stuff, and not as heavy as you might expect. Gnocchi can turn out dense, heavy, and almost sickening at times, but this was just right. I even felt okay with dipping some bread in the bleu cheesey sauce after I finished the gnocchi.
Well, that's probably a fair update on eating in Lyon, so far. I will add one more note, which is that you can find chocolate anywhere. I think back to living in India where, sure, you could buy milk chocolate at just about any corner, but you could only get dark chocolate at one shop, down by the temple, where they sold American things like cherrios and DVDs that weren't illegal. Here I can literally walk next-door to the tiny grocery store and be treated to 40 different varieties of dark chocolate and milk chocolate- white chocolate and truffles. I know not everyone out there is a chocolate fan, but for those who are, this is a pretty fun place to live.
Bon apetite!
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