Those wacky French...

[PharmBoy]

Check this http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297420,00.html


Hey, Pierre, what's wrong with chicken?

[Mindfield]

Fixed link.

Though not as weird as China (or most the Eastern region, for that matter) the French have always been a bit odd when it comes to their cuisine. Besides the well known (and still questionable, if you ask me) practice of eating snails, I recall years ago some posh French restaurant selling chocolate cake topped with a thin layer of real gold leaf for some ridiculously exorbitant amount. Never mind the goose that laid the golden egg...

[saoirse]

The link doesn't work, but I'm usually pretty skeptical about anything the FreedomFry News Network says about the French.

[Larry Mudd]

How brazen!

[matt_mcl]

Originally Posted by saoirse

The link doesn't work, but I'm usually pretty skeptical about anything the FreedomFry News Network says about the French.

No, I've heard of this long before. To summarize, the government is being pressured to better enforce a ban on hunting ortolan, a tiny songbird that is regarded as a delicacy but is now a threatened species.

[Kythereia]

Wow, trying to protect an endangered species? Those wacky French.

[PharmBoy]

Originally Posted by Kythereia

Wow, trying to protect an endangered species? Those wacky French.

They're not protecting them, genius, that's the issue. They're wiping out a species for the sake of 2 oz of meat. There are laws but they are not being enforced

[Gymnopithys]

Originally Posted by PharmBoy

They're not protecting them, genius, that's the issue. They're wiping out a species for the sake of 2 oz of meat. There are laws but they are not being enforced

They don't hunt ortolans and the French don't use mistnets for small birds.

[tdn]

Originally Posted by Mindfield

Though not as weird as China (or most the Eastern region, for that matter) the French have always been a bit odd when it comes to their cuisine.

It would never occur to me to ever, no matter what weirdnesses I read about, say anything bad about French cuisine. That's like saying that Mozart's "songs" were kind of weird.

[jjimm]

The practice of eating ortolans is bizarre. It has been illegal for decades; centuries, even. So people who eat it (whole) do so while concealing their identity. By putting a napkin over their head.

Jeremy Clarkson did a great documentary on it, during which he ate the bird in the traditional attire. Anyone interested should watch that, as you can see the whole thing from start to finish. And he's rude about the French...

Weird, and dreadful to threaten a species with extinction, but I don't think either the Brits or the Americans are in a position to complain about cuisine. (And escargot are really only shellfish, without the fish bit. And they're delicious.)

[Antonius Block]

This SDMB thread from 2002 discusses the eating of ortolans (from post #20 onward) with some interesting background from clairobscur.

The thread culminates in a riveting description by a Doper of his ortolanophagic experience in Lyon nine years previously.