lingua franca

"A lingua franca (originally Italian for "Frankish language") is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues" - Wikipedia definition

I've been trying to complete one or two Rosetta Stone French lessons per day since I arrived in Paris. This is complicated by a few factors:

1. I feel the need to repeat every word in every lesson to practice my pronunciation. This limits where I can practice, e.g. alone in my apartment (and not very late at night so as not to annoy the neighbors), and it slows down the process.

2. Also, I find the Rosetta Stone pace annoying. Maybe it's because I started with the very basic lessons, but I find myself impatient, blurting the answer out loud, and clicking through the wrong answers, so that the program throws up a big red "X" and sad-face sound. The program is meant to build confidence, not raise blood pressure, but it makes me want to throw my computer through the window.

My other compliant is that the program focuses on all the wrong things. I really don't care how to say circle, square, yellow, red, or the little girl drinks a glass of milk while the lady points at something with her left hand. I want verbs and nouns that I use in every day life, such as "which breakfast pastry has chocolate inside?" and "which of these dishes is from a part of the animal that is eaten by people other than the French?" What I need is a vocabulary that can help me navigate a gastronomy that is obsessed with doing freaky things to animals in the name of haute cuisine.

For example, last night I went to dinner with a friend and former colleague at a "very French restaurant" in my neighborhood. It was lovely catching up with her, hearing about her new career that combines art and sustainability, and how she's managed to move on to do very interesting work. We talked about art, philosophy, politics and culture: it was a very French meal.

But again, I had problems deciphering the menu. She ordered foie gras, and encouraged me to have try some. It was very good and tasted fine, but I couldn't help thinking of little fat ducks being force fed in order to fatten and corrupt their livers so that I could have some tangy meat paste with bread on Monday night.

However, I made a huge mistake with my selection, which I blame on my unbalanced vocabulary. I started with leek soup. For the main course, which by the way is a "plat" because an "entree" is an appetizer (wtf!, I know, counterintuitive), I ordered "fromage" which means "cheese."

BUT, not all fromages are created equal. I ordered "fromage de tete," which literally translates as "head cheese" and which is actually a select group of organs of a cow, namely, the feet, tongue and heart.

Now, she had warned me this dish contained odd meats so I can't claim complete ignorance. But I honestly thought it would be something like tender lamb cheeks in a meaty sauce.

If only....

The dish that arrived has haunted me for several days. At first, all I noticed was some marbled cubes of meat, arranged over a bed of lentils. I "tucked in" and took note of the interesting flavors and soft, gelatinous texture. Yet, after a few more bites, I started to wonder if the cubes were gelatinous due to fat content that had somehow "set", or whether I was actually eating pieces of the hoof. (And it's really amazing and surprising that hoof can be softened like that!)

The next bite I took, I don't think I'll ever forget, because as the piece of meat on my fork came closer to my mouth, I noticed: little white hairs on pink meat with little raised buds. It was clearly a wedge of tongue. At that moment, all the cubes of meat assembled themselves in my mind like the pieces of a three dimensional puzzle and I could see the image of a small, cute, very healthy cow staring at me with questioning eyes, and I just couldn't eat another piece.

Even today, during a meeting where we hosted guests from Sweden, Spain, Germany and the UK, where many of us spoke in English so we could all communicate about the role of business in upholding human rights, I had to wonder about the cow tongue, and what it would say if it could talk. Probably something like, "where's my joie de vivre, you jerk!?"