Too Little, Too Late

Why knowing just a little bit of French can spell big trouble

 

Had I seen this picture back in 1987, I would not have learned the hard way that knowing a little bit of a language can be a dangerous thing. It was that summer when my husband (still just my boyfriend) and I took what turned out to be a glorious vacation, a week of cycling in the Loire Valley. I was conjuring up my high school French, even then a distant memory, and he was relying on me to do the talking. And actually, I wasn’t doing half bad.  We figured out how to get our bikes from Orly to Paris and then on to Angers by train, found charming hotel rooms and delicious meals  in one town after another, and enjoyed the chateaux and sunflowers along the route.

 

One night in Orléans, tired after a day of riding, I spotted cervelle d’agneau on the menu.

 

“Great!” I thought. “Agneau is lamb and I love lamb!”

 

But when my meal arrived, it wasn’t a lamb chop. It wasn’t even a slice of mutton. It was unmistakably a lamb’s brain, albeit swimming in butter. So I did what any hungry cyclist would do. I ate it.   I’ve never forgotten the word cervelle. (And I’ve never ordered it again either.)

 

By Anne Schwartz