Eew!

Okay everyone, prepare to be totally grossed out!!!

Last night we had dinner at a Lyonnais Institution, Carnegie Hall. For about one hundred years, mostly during the 20th century, the area around the restaurant Carnegie Hall was were all the meat was butchered, in what the French call an abbatoir.

The butchers would cut up the meat all night long. At about nine or ten o’clock in the morning, they would come in to the restaurant Carnegie Hall for a breakfast of Tete de Veau, or Head of Veal.

You have to understand a few things before I continue. Lyon is the gastronomic capital of France. Lyon has many food and wine traditions. Quite a number of the gastronomic traditions came from what the blue collar workers ate. Construction workers and butchers had physical jobs, they need a lot of fat and calories to keep them fueled. In the past, food was hard to come by and all parts of the animals ere consumed: brains, head, tongue, feet, intestines. Some of the food that is served here is not found anywhere else, not even in Paris. I am pretty adventurous, but there are a few things I just won’t touch.

These kinds of dishes are still served in Lyon’s Bouchon restaurants (which I’ll write about another time), brasseries and local restaurants like Carnegie Hall. There are several restaurants who still serve Tete de Veau only in the morning.

Last night we ordered:

Beef tongue

Double gras or double fat intestines.

And the infamous Tete de Veau of Head of Veal

A friend wanted to have the Cervelle de Veau or Veal Brain, but they were out, it was in popular demand. He settled for the double fat intestines and the head of veal. 

Everyone was happy with their traditional food. I was content with some fresh asparagus and a nice steak slathered in morel mushrooms in a cream sauce.

Voila!

A demain.

Love, Charley