The Butcher Adventure

Last Wednesday, I had a plan. I had no class, so I was going to go shopping early and make a big batch of slow cooked bolognaise sauce that I could have for dinner, and have frozen for future meals. I had bought almost all of my ingredients at the local Franprix. My last stop was the butcher shop on my favorite food shop lined street, rue Cadet. I walked over to the shop practicing in my mind how exactly I was going to order this meat which they grind for you on the spot.

When I got to the shop they were closing up for lunch. Nooo! I started looking all around on that street. There HAD to be at least one other butcher on this street that I had missed on all my walks on it. I turned around, and there was a very small one right behind me. Perfect. I ran in, looked in the very small meat case, and told the woman what I wanted. She told me in broken English that it wasn't beef, it was "cheval". For the life of me, I could not remember what this word meant. I knew that I knew it, but it just would not come to me. I looked at her with a squinty-eyed, bewildered look on my face, and she said "ox". Oh! Well that's close enough to beef I thought, and the woman next to me told me it was good, so I went ahead with my purchase and began the walk home.

As I was walking, I finally remembered what cheval meant. Horse. I nearly stopped in my tracks. No, that can't be right I thought. As soon as I got home, I pulled up good ol' Google Translate and put it in. Sure enough, horse was the translation. Well shoot. I had already bought it....and the horse was already dead.....and in a pasta sauce I might not really taste it....so I figured I might as well go ahead and cook it up.

The first bite was tough. All I could think of was little ponies prancing about in a field. In all reality as a whole, it wasn't bad. A little irony tasting, but edible. Not something I would want to eat again really, more because of the mental taboo than anything, but as a result of that big batch of sauce I made, I still have a freezer full of it!

The finished sauce

The day after making the sauce, I went back over to where the shop was and looked at the sign outside. It says "Boucherie Chevaline" = Horse Butcher....and they have little horse sculptures at the top. No wonder they couldn't give me beef!