Sunday February 26, 2012  

Hardenbergia comptoniana

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Our Hardenbergia comptoniana (also known as native wisteria, happy wanderer or in the US as lilac vine) was about to drop this leaf.

H. comptoniana (“Hardenbergia”) is a climbing vine native to WA. It is a member of the Fabaceae (pea) family and as such can grow in poor soil because it makes its own nitrogen. It grows quite vigorously in our crappy grey Bassendean sand and seems to thrive on neglect and drought. It has tough, leathery, dark green leaves that are similar in shape to a eucalyptus.

We have planted it at the base of a super six fence (the ubiquitous corrugated asbestos stuff that is a feature of every backyard established before the 90s). It has grown up and over and each spring treats us to prolific purple flowers. Despite having about 40 square cms of compacted sand between the concrete drive and the fence, it thrives.

It grows well in very poor, sandy soil, full sun and irregular waterings.

Given its toughness and determination, we’re considering planting it to screen our shed and more of the ugly fencing. Apparently it can be propagated by current year cuttings or by boiling the seed to break the hard coating. I’m going to try each method, and might even report back.

References:

http://anpsa.org.au/h-com.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardenbergia

Hardenbergia illustration by Edward Minchen (1862-1913), 1896

Hardenbergia monophylla, Edward Minchen 1896

Tuesday December 20, 2011  

Magic

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Arthur C Clark’s third law states that:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Also, as a consequence of Moore’s law:

Technological sophistication increases exponentially.

It would also be reasonable to assume that any single human has a finite limit to the amount of knowledge that can be gained in their lifetime.

Thus, with Technology advancing exponentially and our understanding of the world around us limited, more and more of our environment is beyond our grasp.

In other worlds, the world is getting more magical every day.

Sunday December 11, 2011  

Blue banded bee

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In the garden yesterday, we had an unusual visitor: a bee with blue stripes!

I’d never seen anything like it before. It was beautiful!

But what was it? Was this a mutant bee? A strange introduced species?

A little Googling came up with an answer: the blue banded bee. It is apparently a native Australian bee that lives a solitary life. However, it is apparently only distributed in tropical and subtropical regions – so why was it doing in Perth?

I ran inside, grabbed the camera and managed one semi-decent photo of it.

The blue banded bee doing his thing.

Sunday December 11, 2011  

25-29 September: Berlin

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26 September – Fat Tire Bike Tour

Like Paris, we had booked a tour for the first day in Berlin to get a feel for the place. This time, we were meeting up with the Fat Tire Bike crew behind Alexanderplatz.

On the way, we went to find a coffee. We still hadn’t forgotten the terrible coffee in Paris and were looking for something better. We found The Barn coffee shop, and it was everything we had hoped for.

The Fat Tire bikes

The Fat Tire guys have a good little set up in Alexanderplatz, with enormous number of bikes, a little shop and a toilet. Remember the first rule of travelling: always look out for (free) toilets.

The Fat Tire bikes are big cruisers, comfy and relaxed to ride. Even better: they have squeeky toys on the handle bars. Our guide, Francis, explained that this was for use when we encountered dogs. “It makes the dogs go crazy”, he explained, “and makes their owners go even crazier!”

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

The tour took us the best part of the day, taking in the remains of the wall and sniper towers, Checkpoint Charlie, the site of the Humbolt book burning, the Reichstag (though we couldn’t go in as you need to give 48 hours notice), Brandenberg Gate, the site of Hitler’s bunker, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and finishing with beers at the Tiergarten biergarten.

27 September – Alternative tour of Berlin

Today we had booked New Europe‘s Alternative City Tour. To be honest, we weren’t impressed. We saw some pretty cool street art, which is what we were there for. We were showed some squats, art squats and the location of some clubs… half heartedly. Our guide, it seemed, had been spending too much time at his favourite club: Tresor. Through his obvious suffering, the one thing that he could drum up enthusiasm for was this particular club: the “reason [he was] still in Berlin”, the place to go for “really hard, heart recalibrating techno”, with “one, single strobe light that goes all night”.

Berlin street art - looks like a Banksy

28 September

We started the day at The Barn again. This time we ‘Perthed’. Perth is a pretty small place, but by some arcane mechanism, the probability of running into someone you know from Perth nears 1 the further you go from Perth. Hence, ‘Perthed’. As it turned out, the barista was a bloke I used to bodyboard with over ten years ago.

From there we were heading to a Berliner Underwelten tour of Berlin’s World War 2 air raid bunkers. It was awesome. It’s impossible not to feel the weight of history when you’re sitting 10m underground in a concrete room, on a wooden bench, with less than two hours worth of oxygen. For a history nerd like myself, more interested in the human experience than dates and names, this was nirvana.

One-man bomb shelter. Lonely...

Across the road was a park. In the flat city of Berlin, this park contained a decent sized hill. Rather than simply being an interesting piece of geography, the hill was in fact piled up rubble from the war. Originally the park had been flat and had housed a huge concrete flak tower. Unable to dynamite the reinforced concrete tower, they had filled it with rubble and piled up more rubble around it. Today, only the top could be seen poking out at the top of the hill.

Squirrel!!!

On the way back down, we spotted something we had been hoping to see the whole trip. Here, where nature had reclaimed a place of conflict, concrete and misery, lived a pair of stunning red squirrels.

Returning home, we tested the local street food speciality: curry wurst. Think hot dog; take the sausage out of the bun; drench the whole lot in ketchup and sprinkle with curry powder. My description might be iffy, but the result was tremendous. I managed to annihilate 4 of them that afternoon.

The next day we were flying to Split, bussing to Plitvice Lakes for a few nights of trekking and then down to Dubrovnik.

Berlin had been great fun. Being able to get  longnecks of awesome German beer for less than a Euro at the local shop was just the icing on the cake.

Monday November 21, 2011  

Promises

So according to the blog, I have just made it to Berlin. That was a few weeks ago. So what do you think happened:

  • I am lost somewhere deep in the Berlin underground
  • I discovered the rave scene and have not seen the light of day since
  • I got deported to a land without Internet
  • The dizzying heights of fame sucked me in and I am currently lounging in my mansion being fed grapes by beautiful women

Sadly, the truth is far more mundane. While we were away, I was promoted to Manager and on my return we got stuck into the projects we had on hold while we were away. Despite having the very best intentions, my life since the has been hectic and I have been neglecting you all.

I feel terrible about it, if that makes you feel better.

Hectic has its upside, though. I have a lot to write about:

  • Berlin
  • Dubrovnik
  • The veggie garden we are building
  • My lovely new Forester
  • Gear review of the Deuter Quantum 55 pack I took to Europe
  • Gear review of the Lifeproof iPhone case
  • And more that I can’t remember

All these things, dear readers, I promise you. Soon. At least, As soon as I can get around to it…

Monday October 10, 2011  

25 September: Frankfurt to Berlin

This little dog ("kleiner Hund" in German) was having a kip under a stall at the fun run in Frankfurt. It is important to learn some local language wherever you go so that the dogs understand you when you pat them!

We woke up Sunday morning to find that everything was closed in Frankfurt. Bummer.

With no shops open, we had the choice of walking around or going to the zoo. We decided to go for a wander along the river, see what we could see and head in the general direction of the zoo.

Along the river, we found concrete table tennis tables next to a decent little skate park. What a brilliant idea! If only the shops were open, we could have bought a pair of paddles and a few ping pong balls and we’d be set.

Following the sound of bass thumping from somewhere in the distance, we stumbled across a fun run. We were suddenly surrounded by pink t-shirts and sneakers. We must have arrived before the event started, because there was not a drip of sweat to be seen, only stalls giving out charity information and selling cupcakes. Wait… what?

Deciding that this was about all we could do in Frankfurt (it is a very commercial city), we headed to the station and jumped on the next train to Berlin.  Berlin was our destination, and we had bought a seat reservation for 3pm (travelling on a EuRail pass) but without anything holding us in Frankfurt we took the opportunity to push things along.

Train travel is not nearly as tiring as plane travel. This was our discussion as we neared Berlin. We came up with a few reasons:

  • The seats are bigger, so your elbows aren’t pinned to your ribs
  • You can walk around more
  • There is a restaurant car!
  • The windows are huge, so you don’t feel so cramped
  • You can actually watch the scenery go by without giving yourself permanent neck damage

It took 4.5 hours to reach Berlin, but we were feeling reasonably fresh when we arrived. I had been on Google maps before hand and worked out the route from the nearest train station to the Baxpax Downtown Hostel, where we were staying.

First challenge, though, was the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. We were lost. Not only were we lost, we were lost inside the train station. There were four or five storeys and every time we followed the sign to the S-bahn platform, we ended up at the Brandenberger Tor line which has all of 3 station on it and heads off in the wrong direction. And each time we ended up there, we met the same confused looking lady. Mind you, she was wearing a race number and had just completed the Berlin marathon, she had earned her disorientation.

We had passed an info point on one of our earlier permutations of getting lost and headed back to figure this out. The bloke spoke good English, and pointed us to platform 15 to get the S-bahn to Freidrichstraβe. “Thanks, but can you explain to us how we are supposed to know to go to platform 15?” “You need platform 15.” “Yeah, but why?” “Platform 15”

Um… ok. At least he was right. Thanks to our scrawled directions and that handy little Buckingham Palace compass-keyring, we made it there on the first try. Things were looking up.

When I had booked the room, they had no twin/double rooms available. I had the choice of either splitting us up into male/female dorm beds of paying for an extra person and scoring a three bed apartment all to ourselves. Booyakasha! It paid off. We were able to make lunches and a few dinners at home and easily paid off the extra €30 per night. On the downside, from the bedroom window we looked straight at the Ernst & Young building. There is no escape from Uncle Ernie’s relentless grip.

We made a little mission to find a supermarket, which ended up being directly under the train station we had arrived at and we find king brown (500ml) bottles of delicious German beer for 85c Euro. We also bought cheeses and dark german bread for the following day’s lunch. Win all round!

And, conquering the hostel’s laundry facilities, we had clean clothes for the first time in over a week.

Friday October 7, 2011  

24 September: Castles on The Rhine

Rheinfels castle

Breakfast was provided at the hostel, and what do you know, they had museli, yoghurt and bananas! We nicked some bananas for lunch and headed across the road for the train. To get to the Rhine, we had to transfer in Mainz. The DeutcheBahn website, will help you put together a journey from point to point and tell you which trains to catch. What sets it apart is that it tells you which platforms each train leaves from. This, and the fact that the German trains are punctual, means that a 5 minute interchange is entirely possible. Anything over 20 mins between trains is a waste of time. However, this morning a signalling fault had the train running 10 mins behind schedule and we would only have 3 mins to get to the next train in a station we were not familiar with. Well, we made it in 3 mins. Unbeknownst to us, the train had made up the time during the trip and had arrived on time. So we had time to catch our breath for the next 10 mins before our train left the station.

We alighted at a town called Bingen am Rhein at the stadt (city) stop rather than the main station (always called the hauptbahnhof or hbf). From there, we strolled to the Köln Düsseldorfer (KD) jetty and jumped on the cruise up the Rhine. The KD cruise was free with the Eurail pass, so we were pretty stoked. It was cold though. Not fresh, cold. A chilly headwind was blowing and mist was rising from the river. We had to keep jumping between the deck and the enclosed area to stay warm.

The Rhine is dotted with castles every few kilometres. Each seems to be in sight of the others and each sits on the top of a hill. Originally, they were built to protect the toll stations that leeched money from the traders on the river. The poor traders must have forked out a lot of cash to travel on the river, given the number of castles. We headed north in the direction of Koblenz.

We jumped off the ferry at a little town called Bacharach. I had heard that it was nice, so we went to explore. It was a perfect little medieval town with shopfronts enclosing the narrow, cobbled streets. We walked down little alleys and garden paths, with tiny stone bridges crossing the stream.

Back on the ferry and we continued north to St Gaur. Here, the largest of the Central Rhine castles sits in ruins. Rheinfels castle was an enormous complex that once survived a 15 month siege! Today it is a ruin, having fallen to the French in the age of cannon fire and subsequently been blown up and used as a quarry. We spent a few hours wandering the ruins. They have an English information sheet with a self guided tour. We followed it around and explored. This is a real castle. Some up the river are 19th century recreations of what the Romantics thought a castle should be. This was the real deal. Even with a map we got lost in the rings of walls and courtyards. Good luck to anyone trying to attack. Everywhere we looked, we were faced with arrow slits; above us were battlements and murder holes. It really was huge.

We got back to the pier, but the ferries were going to take a very long time to get to the next castle that I wanted to see, so we crossed the river on a barge (there are no bridges across the Rhine for some reason) and caught the train up the river to Braubach. By this time it was after 5pm. The shops were closing as we walked through the town and we walked up the path to Marksberg Castle. I mentioned earlier that the castles all sit on top of hills. We were pretty knackered and the sun was getting low. We arrived at the castle, but they had closed. Only the restaurant was open and that seemed to be only for a private function. Disappointed, we wandered back to the train. The trip back to Frankfurt was to hours and we arrived there about 9. We headed straight to Urban Kitchen, a trendy café that we had spotted the previous day for dinner. Their Frankfurt Pizza was delicious, but their Greek Vege Burger was to die for. It was a huge slab of feta, grilled eggplant, cucumber and tzatziki. Genius!

Back at the hostel, I decided we’d better book the rest of our accommodation and figure out the plan for Berlin. The next day we would explore Frankfurt a bit more and then head to berlin in the afternoon.

Friday October 7, 2011  

23 September: Frankfurt

Luzern

We had packed our bags the night before so that we could get up early. We knocked back our standard breakfast of muesli, yoghurt and a banana and used the special tea bags we’d been given from Brown’s back in London.

It was a chilly morning as the sun came up. In Switzerland, we had been told that “you call it ‘fresh’, because ‘cold’ means below zero.” We wandered up (up, in Switzerland means quite a long way up) to the base of the waterfall that was opposite our cabin. It was called Staubach falls and was the most prominent waterfall in the valley. Following the path through the cow and sheep paddocks, we found that a path had been carved out of the rock so that you could walk up behind the falling water. Apparently, this was the only safe way to approach it, given the glacial debris that comes down. Even the sheep were kept away from the edge.

We handed back our key and got a lift to the Lauterbrunnen train station. Our bags were heavy and it was an up hill walk, so a lift was appreciated. We found the post office while waiting for the train and managed to send some of our goodies home.

We jumped on the Lauterbrunnen to Interlaken Ost train, and then switched to the Interlaken Ost to Luzern “Golden Pass” scenic train. The terrain for this leg was flatter and a lower elevation than the Montreux to Interlaken Ost leg. While still beautiful, if you could only do one scenic leg, do the Montreux-Interlaken section and on the way out of Lauterbrunnen you could get a connection directly from Interlaken to Basel.

In Luzern, we had an hour to kill before the train to Basel. We had taken the long way from Interlaken to Basel to take the scenic train. We knew we were going to be on trains all day, so the extra train time to catch some scenery was worth it. We dropped into the ticket office there and booked the last leg of the day’s journey (Basel to Frankfurt) as this was an Inter City Express (ICE) train and seats could not be guaranteed. Likewise, we booked an afternoon ticket out of Frankfurt to Berlin for a few days later. With 45 mins to spare, we stepped out of the train station and were greeted with a vista of Luzern from the river front. Across the river and amongst the hotels and businesses rose half a dozen old watch towers, a few churches and some remains of the city walls. To our left, next door to the train station, was the Modern Art Gallery and in front of that was the pier. We found a seat on the pier to eat our lunch (we’ve been carrying bread, cheeses and salami just about everywhere) and watch the swans. It was perfect.

A leisurely wander back into the bahnhof (train station), and we jumped onto the train to Basel and from there transferred to Frankfurt.

Frankfurt was our destination. I had booked a hostel not too far from the train station. There were no double rooms available, to we had a twin with two single beds. As it turned out, the hostel (Hostel Frankfurt), was across the road from the train station and we could see the sign as we stepped into the sunlight. We found our way in, up the smallest elevator ever and checked in. Our room had a nice new bathroom in an otherwise Spartan turn of the century building. It was clean, the sheets were fresh and the place seemed well organised and friendly. They had some good touches like soap dispensers in the bathroom so you didn’t need to carry a slimy bar of soap around. I also quite liked the window (which sounds really lame). If you turned the handle one direction, it tilted into the room to allow fresh air in from the top of the window. If you closed it again and turned the handle the other way, it opened on the other axis and swung in like a door. Magic!

Settled in, we went for a walk to find dinner. As it turned out, the bahnhof area was a bit dodgy. There were a fair few seedy looking characters and homeless people lingering about. It must also have been the red light district, given the street full of sex shops. Past this, however, were a few trendy cafes and pubs. Further up as we started to enter the CBD, we stumbled across a market in the middle of town. There were cows to be patted, some kind of über strong cherry schnapps to be sampled, cheese and sausage sellers and a bunch of beer and food stalls.

At one point, we wandered into a stall with someone cooking up seafood. They had a bunch of tubs with fish swimming around in them. As we walked up, one little fish about the size of a decent ciclid poked his head out and seemed to look at me. Weird fish. Next moment, out he wriggled and splotched himself on the cobble stones in front of me. What the hell just happened? I grabbed the little bugger off the pavement and foiled his escape attempt by chucking him back in his water. Some of the people walking past were watching by this stage. I noticed that some of the tanks had Perspex on them, so I slid a sheet over this little Houdini and looked up. Across the tanks from me a bloke and his girlfriend were looking a bit freaked out. I followed his eyes to the eels in the tank in front of him. By sliding the Perspex onto my fish, I had uncovered the eels. We looked at each other, and I hurriedly  pushed the Perspex back on to the eels. Better of two evils. Andhey, maybe the little guy would make good his escape.

We found dinner at a pizza stall and a bratwurst stand and necked a stein of beer at the beer hut. It was turning out to be a good day.

Back at the room, we confirmed the train times for the next day and went to bed.

Friday October 7, 2011  

22 September – Mountain biking Lauterbrunnen

I couldn't get enough of the view from our picnic spot.

We got to sleep in! For the first time on the trip, we were still in bed  at 8am. We had a leisurely breakfast and headed into Lauterbrunnen. We had been up the Jungfraubahn and seen that side of the valley the previous day. A cable car called the Schilthorn went up the opposite side of the valley (to a mountain of the same name) and to a revolving restaurant at the top. Some scenes of the old James Bond movie On His Majesty’s Secret Service had been filmed there. I had convinced Charlotte that the best way to see that side of the valley was by bike rather than cable car.

The Specialized Rockhoppers that we rented were surprisingly light and quick.

First stop was Imboden Bike, Lauterbrunnen’s local bike shop (you’ll have to run it through Google Translator). They opened at 9am, hence the sleep in. We hired two Specialized Rockhoppers for the day with matching helmets (oh yeah, we looked pro!) and headed for the cable car down the road. At the cable car, they chucked our bikes into a skip bin that was hauled up the mountain under the gondola. The gondola took us up to Grutschalp, 686m above town. From there, we followed the little red mountain bike signs along line of the Lauterbrunnen valley cliffs as we rode up to Mürren (838m above Lauterbrunnen) via Chännelegg. For the most part, this was a well maintained dirt road with some decent hills; nothing too steep for a regular rider.

Re-hydrating in Murren

In Mürren, we stopped for a beer on the verandah of a café on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the valley. As we sat, we watched the Jungfraubahn chug up the mountain way, way off in the distance. Parasailers were gliding along the cliff faces and tiny hawks spiralled on the thermals. Not a bad spot to re-hydrate before the descent and watch the world go by.

From Mürren, we descended flat out into Gimmelwald (563m above Lauterbrunnen) on the zigzagging dirt road. An old Swiss bloke who was out for a walk stopped for a chat as I waited for Charlie to catch up. “Somethingsomethingsomething, huh!” “Sprechen zie English?” “Yah, zee brakes most be goot, huh!”

I couldn't get enough of the view from our picnic spot.

At Gimmelwald, we sat on the grassy slope in the sun and ate our sangas to the sound of cow bells, birds and a soft breeze. A few hikers wandered past and a local farmer was fixing a fence. An old couple in the farmhouse below us grabbed their packs and hiking sticks and set off in different directions. It was serenely peaceful. It seemed that time ran at a different speed in Gimmelwald. Someone once wrote in the guestbook at the Gimmelwald hostel that “if heaven isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, send me back to Gimmelwald.” I agree. At that moment, heaven could wait.

The lady in the bike shop warned us that we should catch the cable car down to the valley from there, because the descent from Gimmelwald was “too steep and [we] would have to walk the bikes.” We had nodded and smiled. Back on our bikes and down some stupidly steep dirt roads, before we turned off onto singletrack. We overtook the old farmer on some pretty steep and rocky paths (the kind where your bum rubs on your back tyre and your chin rests on your seat) but almost immediately had to stop.

Rush hour.

A man was leading his billygoat, the rest of the girlie goats following, down the mountain. Bringing up the rear was his wife and small son, who was happily whacking a goat on the bum with a stick. I’m not sure where they were coming from, but it was a long, steep walk to anywhere. Crossing a glacial stream and over a rickety bridge with danger of falling rocks, the path opened up into a road again and we were off. Overtaking a dodgy 4WD on the way, we finally hit the town of Stechelberg at the very end of the valley. It had been a 700m descent in just over 20mins (excluding lunch). Couldn’t stop grinning.

The mountain biking facilities in Lauterbrunnen are great. You can hire bikes of varying quality at a number of places: both single and dual-suspension. There are very well marked trails (red signs for bikes, yellow signs for walkers). Most trains and gondolas will accept your bike for a small additional fee.

Trummelbach falls

But we weren’t done yet. Along the path back to Lauterbrunnen were the Trummelbach falls. This waterfall collects the glacier melt from 3 glaciers on the highest peaks in the district. Over time, the running water carved out the mountain to the point that the waterfall now falls inside the mountain! Apparently it can flow up to 20,000L per minute and carries 20,200 tonnes of boulder detritus each year! It was pretty epic! While there we met a bloke who was working the lifts who spoke 7 languages: German and French (the languages of Switzerland), English, Russian, Spanish, Czech and something else.

From the falls, Lauterbrunnen was just a cruise along the road, and we were back in time to be only charged a half-day rent! On the way back to the caravan, we stopped for fondue and rösti. The fondue was suspect, but he rösti was great! Then it was back to the caravan to pack and finish off the wine. Tomorrow we were off to Frankfurt.

Tuesday October 4, 2011  

Chitterling Sausage / Andouillette: Very funny France, now help me erase my memory

Andouilette / Chitterling Sausage: Should come with a warning.

Remember a few posts back when I described our first meal in France? Well, I was trying to be nice about it and not sound disrespectful of French cuisine. Remember the Chitterling Sausage? I just found out what it is. Please allow me to be honest about the experience.

It was described as “Chitterling sausage with two kinds of potatoes”. Bangers and mash, right? Don’t Europeans have nice, fancy sausages? To the waiter’s credit, he tried to warn us. When Charlie ordered this “French delicacy” (read “abomination”), the waiter made some discouraging remarks in French. He motioned to his stomach in a swirling motion and drew parallel lines across his stomach with his thumb and index finger.

“Does he mean that it is a big portion?” asked Charlie? I shrugged, “I think he means it is made of pork belly.” The waiter motioned to me as if he thought I should be the one ordering the dish, not Charlotte.

“No thanks, it will be fine, we’ll have the Chitterling Sausage and the Confit de Canard (duck confit).”

It arrived. It didn’t look great, but it wasn’t enough to be put off. We got stuck into our meals and Charlotte tried a bite. The outer casing of the sausage was pretty rubbery and took some sawing to get through. The inside of the  sausage was odd looking lumps. It didn’t look like your average sausage mince; it was too chunky and didn’t really stick together. Then it hit us.

It didn’t smell good. I mean it smelled terrible. When I say “terrible”, I’m not referring to any kind of “terrible” that food should ever smell like. I’ve known some unpleasant smelling dished in my time, but they were all clearly food aromas, albeit unappetizing. This was in a different league. This was the kind of terrible that would embarrass you if your bathroom smelled that way. Yes, it smelled evil. A kind of evil that took us a while to put our finger on. In the meantime (unfortunately in hindsight), Charlotte took another few apprehensive bites.

“It stinks!” Charlotte commented, “What is that?”. She holds the fork in front of her face. “It smells like B.O. No… It actually smells like poop! It’s horrible!”

And so it did. Being a good husband, and conscious no to be culturally insensitive, I told her to hide the taste in the potatoes. But no, it was an aroma of distasteful bodily functions that no amount of mashed potato or mustard could conceal. I tried a bit to see what she was complaining about. It tasted … it was hard put a finger on it … fecal.

My duck was delicious, but the waft across the table was … concerning. Needless to say, the Chitterling sausage went unfinished. As soon as the duck was finished we decided we needed to get away from the table. The smell was too much.

We walked home laughing to ourselves that we had accidentally ordered something that looked, smelled and tasted so bad. Was this a joke by the waiter? What on earth was this “Chitterling Sausage”? We vowed to look it up.

Two weeks later, the holiday is at an end, but I finally got a chance to look up what “Chitterling Sausage” is. For your reading pleasure, I will enlighten you.

Let us start with the “Chitterling” part, as I’m sure you are familiar with sausages. According to Wikipedia, the “1743 English cookery book The Lady’s Companion: or, An Infallible Guide to the Fair Sex contained a recipe for ‘Calf’s Chitterlings’, [referring to] intestine[s].” Today, chitterling generally refers to pig intestines, both the large and small. No problem there – most sausages use intestine as the wrapper. So what, then, is special about these sausages.

Well, as it turns out, Chitterling sausage is a French creation, otherwise known as Andouillette. Here is a somewhat biased description (original author’s emphasis):

The traditional Troyes andouillette is made out from quality pork products - large intestines and stomachs – attentively selected. The original recipe dates back to the Middle Ages according to the Champagne legends.

The delightful – and distinctive! – taste of the andouillette results from cutting the chitterlings lenghtwise first, and seasoning these thin stripes with onions, herbs, salt and black pepper.

The next step is to wrap the mixture with pork bowels and slowly cook these typical French sausages in a court-bouillon stock for 5 hours.

So this guy loves it, but what he is saying is that you are eating intestine wrapped in pork bowels. Bowels. Not intestines. Bowels. We’re talking colon here.

A Wikipedia author (edited since, but captured in all it’s glory here) gives a description that better reflects our experience:

French andouillette, on the other hand, is an acquired taste and can be an interesting challenge even for adventurous eaters who don’t object to the taste or aroma of feces. It is sometimes eaten cold, as in picnic baskets. Served cold and sliced thinly, the smell, taste, and texture may be mistaken for an andouille [a milder, less stinky sausage], but on closer inspection the texture is considerably more rubbery and the meat has a more feces-like flavor. By contrast, many French eateries serve andouillette as a hot dish, and foreigners have been repulsed by the aroma, to the point where they find it inedible (see external links). While hot andouillette smells of feces, food safety requires that all such matter is removed from the meat before cooking. Feces-like aroma can be attributed to the common use of the pig’s colon (chitterlings) in this sausage, and stems from the same compounds that give feces some of its odors.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, we ate pig’s poo-chute sausage!

Now, I ask of you two things.

  1. Please go back and read my account of the meal. With your new found knowledge, you will see the train wreck as it occurs.
  2. Please, please, please read the comments on the site that I found the description on. While reading the comments, please imagine our unsuspecting faces as we taste and re-taste the sausage to try and pinpoint that oddly familiar taste and aroma.
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