I Hate Seafood

It was a beautiful day at the ocean (The Bay of Biscay) in La Rochelle. The town is quaint, has lots of shops, and has great weather. We stayed in a wonderful house owned by my mother's friends. The interior was stone, nautical, and very artsy. The wife does a lot of sculpting. On our way to the beach, I asked my mom if there were any places to change at the beach because I hadn't slipped on my bathing suit underneath my street clothes. After a brief pause, she said, "non". She and my host sister went on to tell me that I would just change on the beach. Hmm. Is this a nude beach? Turns out, no. But unlike the United States, everyone is very comfortable with....... everything. Louise (friend's daughter) and I used a towel which wasn't too effective, while everyone else just stripped down to their bares. I'm starting to wonder if the French drink too much wine. Such a significant lack of modesty. Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

I really do hate seafood.

After having to try les moules and not liking them, I assumed that the trip to La Rochelle (on the coast) would be nice and my family would try to allow me to avoid seafood as much as possible.

For dinner on the night we were there, we went to a seafood restaurant. Now, I stupidly thought that there would be at least something on the menu that wasn't caught in a net. I thought wrong. After trying to figure out what sort of fish things were (anything with a shell is automatically off the table - no pun intended), I decided on daraude. It is a white fish that is "delicious" as my mother's friend said. I didn't know what I was expecting when the food came to the table, but I certainly was not expecting to be making eye contact with what I was about to consume. The damn thing was still fully intact. My mouth fell open and I couldn't say anything except "I'm sorry, fishy". After sensing hesitation, my host mother decapitated the poor victim. I was asked if I wanted wine. I wasn't going to pass that up at this point. Any wine would have been fine, but this wine was actually very good. I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for it from now on.

I wasn't able to finish the fish (maybe the eyes, scales, bones, and the fact the fish could look at me as I was devouring it tainted my appetite), and was partially mesmerized and partially mortified at the fact that my host mother was tearing apart a crab like a barbarian. The others were just as bad, prying things from their shells using all sorts of vile tools. One crab was obviously a female, and my host mother pried open her cache of eggs to many "oohhhhh"s and "ahhhhh"s from the rest of the table (except me, my mouth seemed to have fallen slack again). At this point, I was tipsy enough to not realize I was staring. All of the adults promised me that they'd stop disturbing me with seafood after tonight. I was relieved, I didn't have the heart to tell them I would never eat seafood again. Ever.

So for lunch the next day I had seafood.




I have developed this interest in taking photos of doors, since each one is unique. I thought I'd share some from La Rochelle....

  The door to the house we stayed in...