I have worked at St.Johns in London and while offal is a novelty there..it used to be a complete way of life in rural France. It’s entirely unheard of on this s

I have worked at St.Johns in London and while offal is a novelty there..it used to be a complete way of life in rural France. It’s entirely unheard of on this side of the pond these days. Fwiw, it’s not entirely unpleasant..neither is it that tasty. France (and the Basque) has all sorts of weird gender lines when it comes to culinary prowess. I am sure it is more so in other parts of Europe. French cuisine is very regional. Lyonnaise cuisine with its self proclaimed excellence owes a lot of Roman cuisine. In fact, all of French cuisine owes a big debt to the Italians. The Italian princess Caterina de'Medici who later became the French Queen was the one who introduced so many flavors and dishes and even new vegetables to the French court. The other Queen who influenced French cuisine and instrumental to the birth of the restaurant concept did so by proclaiming her fondness for cake and boldly encouraged the peasants to eat it. They thanked her with a day trip to the guillotine.(that also turned out to be..paraphrasing from P.G.Wodehouse..a French cure for gray hair) Nobody eats Machon breakfasts anymore except the tourists. Well..not ‘nobody’. It’s still a novelty. It goes down well with offerings from the local vineyards. It will literally ‘sit’ in your belly for well for 7-8 hours and you wouldn’t feel hungry at all. Some of the dishes are rather old fashioned and French cooking guilds are mostly for preserving the cooking traditions(largely peasant food traditions) that would be lost otherwise. I would encourage everyone to adopt a largely plant based diet, but might as well utilize the entire animal if killing one for sustenance. However..these dishes and recipes came from an era when starvation was not uncommon and preservation methods were important due to lack of refrigeration. These days offal will straight away go to pet food factories. Offal will remain a novelty cuisine in our future.