Three weeks in Paris, and I hardly mentioned food. Showing some discipline here.

But we will backslide a bit here in the interests of a potential chuckle — my dinner tonight at the Claud Sainlouis bistro on Rue du Dragon in the 6th arrondisement.

So, a sort of fusty old place of the sort that has pictures on the wall of celebrities who have eaten there … people, however, no one under the age of 40 would know. (Jean-Paul Belmondo, anyone?) Not even the French know some of these guys. (The place is also known for having pictures of every French president on its walls.)

A little tatty. A little funky. But old-fashioned, hearty bistro food with a Lyonnaise flavor prepared and served by people who know their business.

So,  I’m perusing the menu, one of those old-school types with the dishes written in a French cursive that is difficult to read … but I’m trying.

I passed on the cassoulet because Leah was having that. Her cousin Jeannie had l’os a moelle — that is, the marrow of cows’ bones. I would pass on that, too.

I saw something on the menu that intrigued me. A noun I didn’t know followed by l’anciennes de la armagnac.

Hmm. Something in the ancient style, cooked with armagnac, a fortified wine.

The word leading off the entree was daube. I asked Leah what that meant. “Stew,” she said, and that sound good to me. Old-fashioned stew. Made in armagnac. Sure.

When the dish arrived, it was served in a Le Creuset cast-iron pot that weighed about five pounds. And inside was a dark, steaming liquid with chunks of beef and potatoes and all sorts of mushrooms.

It was very nice. Savory. Hot. Very good “man did it get cold here early” food. And it had about a quart of wine/beef sauce.

I liked it so much I urged others at the table to have a spoonful of the sauce. Lots of “yummy sounds” were made. If I’d had more bread, I would have sopped up more of the gravy/wine. But our ancienne waitress never brought any. So after spooning up a bit more of the sauce … I finally put it aside and she carried off the pot.

On the way back, Leah said, “I didn’t know you liked beef cheeks.”

Cue the double-take.

“Beef cheeks?”

“Yeah. Right there on the menu.”

“But I thought you said it was beef stew.”

“Beef stew made of joue. Cheeks.”

Joue. As in jowls, I thought.

So we return to the concept of … if you eat beef, if you eat steaks, why do you suddenly get a little squeamish about a different part of the animal? Why do you think back to that one particularly large lump of meat and wonder if that was the jowliest part of the jowls?

And I would reply with, “for the same reason I don’t eat sweetmeats and kidneys and tongue and brain.” Because those are the parts your grandparents from the Old Country ate. While we 20th century folks stuck to the basic cuts.

Anyway, that’s how these things go, in France. If you fail to be quite specific in questioning what you are ordering, you could be eating Peter Cottontail or Mary’s little lamb or the thymus gland — sweetbreads –  from some other animal. Or could have sea snails or tripe sausage (andouillette, which also was on the menu).

If you aren’t going to be vigilant about this … you’re probably better off not asking at all. Just go ahead and chow down. Sixty-two million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.