On a trip to France I went through the same thing. Almost never knew what I was ordering until it showed up. I started out asking the waiters to explain the choices to me, but the cliche of the rude French waiter was no lie, and I just gave up doing that... opting instead to just taking my chances and picking things that sounded ok. The worst thing I ended up with was a plate of fish egg crepes. Was called something like "lumpy". Heaps and heaps of raw fish eggs wrapped in a crepe. Just disgusting. Escargot? Mmm.. tastey. I'm a very picky eater but even I don't consider those to be all that exotic.
Btw., I can't really blame those French waiter's attitudes. The first day there I accidently ended up using what I finally discovered was a tip tray... as an ashtray. No telling how much bs like that they've witnessed. I even heard some guy call the waiter over by saying "garcon". I thought that was just an exageration - but it really happens. The look on the waiter's face was classic though. One of the most authenticly French things I saw on the entire trip.