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Any of you ballers here ever had it?
The bird is protected and therefore is not on the menu these days, but some French chefs are trying to change that... but that's not the point. The point is the meal itself, the prep, and how you eat it.
Tradition dictates that this is to shield – from God’s eyes – the shame of such a decadent and disgraceful act.*
Here's how Anthony Bourdain described it:
The bird is protected and therefore is not on the menu these days, but some French chefs are trying to change that... but that's not the point. The point is the meal itself, the prep, and how you eat it.
A single ortolan bird is no bigger than a baby’s fist and weighs less than an ounce, but they can be sold for as much as $150 to those willing to break the law.
Hunters catch the birds using traps set in fields during their migratory season (when they fly to Africa). They are then kept in covered cages, encouraging them to gorge on grain in order to double their size. It is said that Roman Emperors stabbed out ortolans’ eyes in order to make the birds think it was night, making them eat even more.
They are then thrown alive into a vat of Armagnac, a trick that manages to both drown and marinade the animal at the same time. Killing two birds with one glug, as it were.
Then comes the eating – part pagan ritual, part essay in gluttony. The birds are cooked for eight minutes and served with their heads still attached. After the shame-hiding napkin is placed over the diner’s head (helping, too, to trap the aroma of the dish), the ortolan is popped in its entirety into the diner’s mouth, who then proceeds to eat everything including the head and bones.
Hunters catch the birds using traps set in fields during their migratory season (when they fly to Africa). They are then kept in covered cages, encouraging them to gorge on grain in order to double their size. It is said that Roman Emperors stabbed out ortolans’ eyes in order to make the birds think it was night, making them eat even more.
They are then thrown alive into a vat of Armagnac, a trick that manages to both drown and marinade the animal at the same time. Killing two birds with one glug, as it were.
Then comes the eating – part pagan ritual, part essay in gluttony. The birds are cooked for eight minutes and served with their heads still attached. After the shame-hiding napkin is placed over the diner’s head (helping, too, to trap the aroma of the dish), the ortolan is popped in its entirety into the diner’s mouth, who then proceeds to eat everything including the head and bones.
Tradition dictates that this is to shield – from God’s eyes – the shame of such a decadent and disgraceful act.*
Here's how Anthony Bourdain described it:
The flames in the cocottes burn down, and the Ortolans are distributed, one to each guest. Everyone at this table knows what to do and how to do it. We wait for the sizzling flesh and fat before us to quiet down a bit. We exchange glances and grins and then, simultaneously, we place our napkins over our heads, hiding our faces from God, and with burning fingertips lift our birds gingerly by their hot skulls, placing them feet-first into our mouths – only their heads and beaks protruding.
In the darkness under my shroud, I realize that in my eagerness to fully enjoy the experience, I’ve closed my eyes. First comes the skin and the fat. It’s hot. So hot that I’m drawing short, panicky, circular breaths in and out – like a high-speed trumpet player, breathing around the ortolan, shifting it gingerly around my mouth with my tongue so I don’t burn myself. I listen for the sounds of jaws against bone around me but hear only others breathing, the muffled hiss od rapidly moving air through teeth under a dozen linen napkins. There’s a vestigal flavor of Armagnac, low-hanging fumes of airborne fat particles, an intoxicating dekicious miasma. Time goes by. Seconds? Moments? I don’t know. I hear the first snap of tiny bones from somewhere near and decide to brave it. I bring my molars down and through my bird’s rib cage with a wet crunch and am rewarded with a scalding hot rush of burning fat and guts down my throat. Rarely have pain and delight combined so well. I’m giddily uncomfortable, breathing in short, controlled gasps as I continue slowly – ever so slowly – to chew. With every bite, as the thin bones and layers of fat, meat, skin, and organs compact in on themselves, there are sublime dribbles of varied and wonderous ancient flavors: figs, Armagnac, dark flesh slightly infused with the salty taste of my own blood as my mouth is pricked by the sharp bones. As I swallow, I draw in the head and beak, which, until now, have been hanging from my lips, and blithely crush the skull.
In the darkness under my shroud, I realize that in my eagerness to fully enjoy the experience, I’ve closed my eyes. First comes the skin and the fat. It’s hot. So hot that I’m drawing short, panicky, circular breaths in and out – like a high-speed trumpet player, breathing around the ortolan, shifting it gingerly around my mouth with my tongue so I don’t burn myself. I listen for the sounds of jaws against bone around me but hear only others breathing, the muffled hiss od rapidly moving air through teeth under a dozen linen napkins. There’s a vestigal flavor of Armagnac, low-hanging fumes of airborne fat particles, an intoxicating dekicious miasma. Time goes by. Seconds? Moments? I don’t know. I hear the first snap of tiny bones from somewhere near and decide to brave it. I bring my molars down and through my bird’s rib cage with a wet crunch and am rewarded with a scalding hot rush of burning fat and guts down my throat. Rarely have pain and delight combined so well. I’m giddily uncomfortable, breathing in short, controlled gasps as I continue slowly – ever so slowly – to chew. With every bite, as the thin bones and layers of fat, meat, skin, and organs compact in on themselves, there are sublime dribbles of varied and wonderous ancient flavors: figs, Armagnac, dark flesh slightly infused with the salty taste of my own blood as my mouth is pricked by the sharp bones. As I swallow, I draw in the head and beak, which, until now, have been hanging from my lips, and blithely crush the skull.
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