So what is a bouchon – any ideas?

Well, let The Mole tell you what a Bouchon is and if you are in Lyon, France you have to try one.

Do not expect haute cuisine though because a Bouchon is a type of restaurant found only in Lyon in France, that serves traditional Lyonnaise cuisine such as sausages, duck pâté or roast pork.

[Pictured right – a typical Bouchon.]

You should be prepared that compared to other forms of French cooking such as nouvelle cuisine, bouchon dishes are quite fatty and heavily oriented around meat and bits of meat that you may not recognise!

The other amazing thing about bouchons is that there are only around 20 officially certified traditional bouchons, but beware a larger number of establishments describe themselves using the term, but they are interlopers and not genuine.

The tradition of bouchons came from small inns visited by silk workers passing through Lyon in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and according it appears that the name comes from the 16th century expression for a bunch of twisted straw, with bundles appearing on signs to indicate restaurants, and by extension the restaurants themselves became known as bouchons, although the more common use of “bouchons” is as a stopper at the mouth of a bottle.

Authentic  Bouchons are certified by the organisation Les Authentiques Bouchons Lyonnais and include: Abel, Brunet, Café des Deux Places, Café des Fédérations, Daniel et Denise, Chez Georges Le Petit Bouchon, Les Gones, Hugon, Le Jura, Chez Marcelle, Le Mercière, La Mère Jean, Le Mitonné, Le Morgon, Le Musée, Les Trois Maries, A Ma Vigne, and Le Vivarais and Chez Paul, which is where The Mole went to test drive a Lyonnais Bouchon and a wall in Chez Paul is pictured below showing the historic nature of Bouchons.

A typical meal in a real bouchon costs around €12-15 and some typical items on a bouchon menu include:

Soups: including Tripe soup and Pumpkin soup.

Salads and cold entrées: include chicken liver salad, pig’s head, cheese, groins d’âne moulinhuile, marinaded herrings, salade Lyonnaise – a lettuce with bacon, croutons, and a poached egg. 

Hot entrées including: chicken liver cake, boudin (sausage, usually served with warm apples), Offal, Andouillette (pork offal sausage), assorted offal gratin.

I had an Andouilette and have no idea what was in it and it tasted rather strange, but the description I found says:

Andouillette (pronounced Ondwiyet) is a classic French culinary specialty composed of intestines originally stuffed with pork or veal.

[Pictured left: some Bouchon Suacisson de Lyon]

In major restaurants, Andouillettes can be served either hot or cold.

The taste is acquired, as is all offal, but can be compared to strong pork sausages.

The texture is somewhat rougher than sausages, as the content is roughly cut.

Primarily pan-fried, it can also be barbecued or grilled. It is often served with vegetables in a mustard or red wine sauce.

Andouillette has no strong odor, despite popular misconceptions of it smelling like a plate of pig feces.

When boiled some people say that they really smell of a farm yard with a strong earthy aroma.

It is best served with either dry white wine, brut champagne or Pinot noir.

Fish including: Stingray, quenelles (fish dumplings), grilled fillets.

Meat inclduing: Coq au vin, pot au feu (pot roast), chicken thighs stuffed with morels.

Vegetables including: cardoon à la moelle (in bone marrow), barboton, pailasson de Lyon.

Cheese: Saint-Marcellin, Saint-Félicien [pictured left], Rigotte de Condrieu.

Desserts: walnut pie, lemon meringue pie, caramelized apples, bugnes de Lyon – miniature beignets.

So, are you getting the picture?  

You will have no idea what you are eating because the menu is in French, well it was at Chez Paul with a set menu and it just keeps on coming!

If you would like to see what the inside of a bouchon and specifically Chez Paul in the old part of Lyons, Vieux Lyon, looks like then visit: http://www.travelmole.tv/watch_vdo.php?sid=75&id=14562

Now, by the way [pictured right] this is what they give you at Chez Paul after lunch as a kind of digestif!

It is a very secret recipe of all sorts of green “stuff” with sugar cubes soaking in the green liquid for what appears to be many weeks.

Taking a sugar cube can only be described as a full on assault on the senses, with the initial reaction being , “oh, that’s not so bad, it is a sugar cube”…….and then this menthol, mint, bitter, acid………..explosion happens – clearing your sinuses and every other orifice…..well nearly…….on your body!

Well In France you have to do as the French do!

Zut!

A Report by The Mole on location in Europe