Ortolans

Quick, what is an ortolan? If you said it is a French bird that is a highly sought after delicacy that when cooked, requires its diner to cover their head and eat it as if they were being photographed by a rabid pack of New York photographers that somehow gained access to a character's apartment in the Bronx that was being played by Al Pacino, then, by God, you will have no need to read the rest of this.

I like to take in the Wednesday NYT Dining section. Not as much to read, because there is no chance in hell I'm ever going to be motivated to try a Vietnamese recipe, or can reasonably expect that my wife will. No, it's printed in color, and the captions to the pictures are sometimes all I need to read to see if there is something to really read about.

So, when attracted to a picture on today's page five of a group of five diners in Landes, France bent over their plates with linen napkins over their heads, eating what the caption told us were "little ortolans," I naturally had to find out more.

The story was continued from page one. When I was on page one, I had no interest in the picture of two French chefs, looking very French and very chef, standing in a kitchen over a mound of something with small bird cages off to the side. Yeah, so?

But fast forward to perp-walk diners sitting at a table in a room that could easily be an apartment in the Bronx, with a squalid television in the corner, ratty looking curtains, a sideboard of tchotchkes, a solid green tablecloth with a bottle of wine in the center, and you read every word. Looking closely, you realize there is another place setting for a sixth diner. After reading the story you realize they could easily be the lookout shouldering an automatic weapon taking up a position by the door.

Read on McDuff, and you'll know that the eating the ortolan is illegal in France, but hardly frowned on. It ain't cheap, either. A bird that is claimed can be eaten in one mouthful is $189, or 150 euros. One bird. It is not an endangered species.

The French and their food. The story informs us that former French President Francois Mitterand's last meal, before his death in 1996, consisted of two ortolans, three dozen oysters, foie gras and capon. No autopsy was required.

Only the French would record into lore what a former president ate before they shuffled off. That would be like us describing a last meal president Bill Clinton might consume as he popped the replacement arteries around his heart with "...two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun."

The words don't stop there, either. One of the chefs is trying to get a national one day clemency established for eating the bird. Mr. Guerard, tells us "to eat the flesh, the fat, and its little bones hot, all together, is like being taken to another dimension." Feathered gastronomic LSD.

There is even a revelation that there was a late-night clandestine meeting of French chefs in a New York City restaurant where ortolans were consumed. It is not known if the chefs represented the five New York Mafia families, but it does confirm the image that clandestine things are done in New York restaurants late at night.

One wonders, if there are tailgaters before soccer matches in France that might really be eating ortolans rather than chicken wings.

Alert the authorities.

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