Wait, WHAT am I chewing?

France is a magical place. I've walked through the sunlight along fields of tawny wheat to pick up toasty baguettes at the local boulangerie. The heat soaks through the paper and warms my fingers on the short walk home. The bread is baked fresh every morning and served at every meal. It's a sweet, simple yet deliberate lifestyle. 

Sadly, they don't eat french fries in France, but they do eat some pretty exotic, uh…stuff. Stuff that one might not usually expect to find at the dinner table. First of all, moldy cheese. I'd eaten bleu cheese in the States, but that was pretty mild compared to what passes as edible here. Walking into the massive cheese aisle at the grocery store smells like you've just strode into a locker room. I have sampled every type of cheese placed before me (which is, in my opinion, rather brave) and some of these cheeses are so alive they could be placed in a zoo and observed.

So french fries aren't really French, but escargot definitely is, and you MUST eat escargot while visiting France, right? Unless, of course, you have shellfish allergies. In that case, it would be really stupid to eat escargot because you could have a reaction and die. I, unfortunately, have had shellfish allergies since I was fourteen, so I obviously couldn't eat any escargot…

…But I did anyway! I ate a snail! And then I had an allergic reaction, so it appears my wild, snail-eating days are over. Poor me. (Common sense will definitely be a higher priority for me from now on.)

I've learned that while traveling abroad, it is wise to ask what it is you're eating either before or after you eat it. Don't ask mid-chew or you may be sorry (that's how pig-snout pie happened). Another night, I sat down to what looked like a cute, little chocolate cupcake. I bit into it to discover a flavor that was decidedly not chocolate or cute. Meat, maybe? I finished the "cupcake," but declined seconds because it was too disconcerting chewing something that looked and felt like cake but tasted like sausage.

Emme smiled and met my gaze. "That was blood," she announced.

"Like…blood blood? Blood as in runs-through-your-veins-blood?"

"Yes. Blood."

STOP SAYING THAT WORD.

I like France. I like having bread at every meal, taking morning walks to the bakery…and I like blood to stay far, far away from the kitchen.