It is a truly disgusting food, in texture, flavour, odour and appearance. If you can imagine the process of gutting a pig for food, Andouillette is made from the bits that gutting is normally meant to dispose of, specifically the intestines. To hear some of my partner's extended family in France rattle on about the merits of Andouillette, you'd think that the more colon and anus included, the better. The worst of all are prepared in homes and farms or by the local butcher. They are also available pre-packed from more commercial sources. Although you might imagine that the cleaning, preserving etc, of industrial preparation would help, and it's true that the appalling faecal odour is reduced, they aren't much better.
My life hasn't improved by trying Andouillette and arguably it got worse.
Pretty sure I've told this story before, but a refresher will help ensure I don't repeat the experience.
I didn't know what I was ordering and the waiter tried to warn me. In very broken English he said a few words then did a swirling action with his hand pointing to his intestines. I just thought, well yeah it's a sausage of course it has some intestines in it and other stuff. Whilst also thinking that I love black pudding so how bad can it be. How wrong I was. Smell was horrendous. Taste wasn't as bad though, but that's a low benchmark. Texture was meaty, but I expected something very different. There was a range of emotions experienced during that meal. It was probably worse for my girlfriend at the time as the smell put her off her meal.
There's something profoundly embarrassing about eating it. It's like the pig was consulted about being eaten and said, 'Yeah, OK, I get that you want to scoff my meaty haunches or my fatty belly, but whatever you do, don't eat those bits, because they're sort of dirty and private.' But we go ahead and eat them anyway. And, yes, they're stinky and chewy and disgusting, but also some people love that because they're back to being 2 or 3 and stuck in the anal stage. And if you knew some of those people, voting for Le Pen with their hands and clamping their jowls on the arse sausage for comfort, you wouldn't be surprised.
I'm really glad my mention of Andouillette has provoked such a response.
If I so much as see it on a menu, I'll run screaming out of the establishment.