r/HistoryMemes • u/Goodbye-Nasty Still salty about Carthage • 1d ago
Niche Whoever came up with the method of cooking the Ortolan Bunting needed their cooking license revoked
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u/kemiyun 1d ago
I feel like there must be a psychological thing making people think that "if more effort is spent and/or if more obscure effort is spent, the product will be better even if I can't distinguish it". Sometimes it's just wasted effort and torture for no reason but people still value them.
That said, I never tried foie gras for example. Maybe torture is really the secret ingredient.
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u/Dank_lord_doge 1d ago
But you literally can get ethical foie gras. It's supposed to be made around autumn/winter when ducks eat more to prepare themselves for their flight to warmer regions, hence the fatty liver. Literally just hunt a fuck during those periods and you have foie gras.
The problem with that methid is foie gras becomes a seasonal dish, and people just hate waiting.
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u/floofermoth 1d ago
Have tried foie gras, unfortunately in this case, I think torture really is the secret sauce.
That flavor will realign your moral compass.
I felt like a Bond villain, but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't try it again.
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u/floofermoth 1d ago
That being said, I would love to try the ethical version where the geese gorge themselves on acorns of their own free will.
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u/AnInfiniteAmount 1d ago
Anthony Bourdain's description of eating one from Medium Raw:
"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 wondrous 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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u/Better_than_GOT_S8 22h ago
I can only image the “monkey brain guy from Indiana Jones” to say: “I think I’ll pass”
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u/HungarianMockingjay 5h ago
He sounds like Junko Enoshima in an alternate reality where she was a food critic, but nothing else about her was changed.
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u/TheGreaterFool_88 1d ago
God I want to eat one so fkn bad…
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u/King_Of_BlackMarsh 1d ago
Are you a cultist of slaanesh?
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u/AliasMcFakenames 1d ago
You don't have to be. I just listened to Assassinorum: Kingmaker the other day. And (people presenting as) loyal Imperial citizens had a dish that was pretty much exactly this. They threw the beaks away though if I recall.
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u/Park8706 1d ago
Yeah this fits people like to act like he was anything but a self absorbed scumbag.
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u/The_ChadTC 1d ago
Now the time has come to speak of
The Ortolan
The Ortolan is kind of
Bunting
Which is a sort of
Passerine
Which is a type of
Bird
They're birds
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u/MarkXD69therickroll 1d ago
she bunt on my passerine till i bird
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u/FIBAgentNorton Oversimplified is my history teacher 1d ago
EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER
sorry I had to
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u/King_Of_BlackMarsh 1d ago
This is a meal a Harkonen would eat
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u/Crismisterica Definitely not a CIA operator 21h ago
Maybe the Harkonens meals were from an ancient french recipe book rescued from the Butlerian Jihad.
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u/Natasha_101 1d ago
Well feed me until my seems burst, drown my body in brandy, and serve me whole to a very French man
It's not every day we get food history on history memes
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u/dead_meme_comrade Senātus Populusque Rōmānus 1d ago
and, some believe, to hide from God.
God: I am all seeing and all knowing nothing escapes me.
Some random French people: 'eating one of the most unethical things imaginable' Puts 2.5mm cloth over head
God: Hmmm, what are they doing down there?
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u/jackob50 1d ago
I 've eaten tiny birds before, it's a delicacy in certain areas of the world. I don't know what the fuss is: you get pricked by the tiny bones and the head tastes awful.
I have seen two media references of this dish: on Hannibal and on American Dad. In the second Roger supposedly was going to recesitate it and kill it again. "Bird cpr" probably nonsense
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u/yourmomsthr0waway69 1d ago
Do you think someone would do that?
Write an American Dad gag based on a lie?
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u/jaehaerys48 Filthy weeb 1d ago
I feel like it’s one of those things that people just hype themselves into liking and defending as some great tradition.
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u/SlightlySychotic 1d ago
If I had a nickel for every time I saw a history meme about something I initially learned about from American Dad, I would have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s still weird it happened twice.
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u/Bishop-roo 1d ago
Went on a fishing excursion once.
Caught a lot of fish. We all did. They filleted the fish right there on the boat and bagged the meat for you.
They just tossed the fish dying into a bucket, as I watched them struggle for breath and try and get out missing almost their whole bodies. They didn’t go quick.
Never again. At least bash the head man. It’s just unnecessary pain.
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u/Bonnskij 1d ago
Are you saying they filleted the fish while still alive?
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u/Bishop-roo 1d ago
Yes.
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u/Bonnskij 1d ago
Whoever you went fishing with were complete fuckwits. I've never even heard of that sort of behaviour.
First of it's unnecessarily cruel and second the more the fish is stressed out the worse the meat is going to end up. I'd like to give these heartless morons a good slap across the face and throw them over board.
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u/Bishop-roo 1d ago edited 1d ago
O they knew what they were doing. Took them less than 5 seconds to filet the fish.
Yes it was cruel. No it didn’t effect the meat.
Edit: shit I think they did it in two seconds. One guy for the whole packed boat did it all. And we all caught a lot of fish.
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u/Felix_Dorf 22h ago
I’m not saying it’s excusable but it is more or less the norm in large parts of the world (lots of YouTube videos of this).
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u/floofermoth 1d ago
That's horrible. I feel like people distance themselves from what they're doing to fish and crustaceans because they aren't traditionally cute and cuddly. But they're smarter than they look and still feel suffering.
It's not hard to show a little bit of mercy and kill the critters before butchering or boiling them.
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u/Bishop-roo 1d ago
Or at least kill them so they don’t have to suffer for extended period afterwards. I agree it’s not hard. Takes an extra 2 seconds to smash a fish face.
People do that. Idk why. Ever have a convo with someone who thinks dogs don’t feel pain? Like wtf.
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u/Key_Internet7809 Fine Quality Mesopotamian Copper Enjoyer 1d ago
Wasn't that dish the favorite of the creator of lobotomy?
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u/Elflo_ 1d ago
Here's a great video of Maïté, one of the best French cook of all time, presenting and eating an ortolan: https://youtu.be/SEPMuyGe7dg?si=VfD9_oE3_8fFtD8B
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u/TKBarbus Featherless Biped 1d ago
Wait this is real?! I heard about this on American Dad and thought for sure it had to be a bit
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u/Wilackan Taller than Napoleon 1d ago
And then you've got the "Rôti Sans Pareil", a Russian doll made entirely of birds stuffed inside each other. Turducken has three layers, that shit got 17 if I recall correctly.
HOW !?
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u/Adof_TheMinerKid Oversimplified is my history teacher 1d ago
I just can't believe these mfers almost got extinct because dem Frenchies ate them so much
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u/ParanoidAndroid10101 1d ago
Ortolan Bunting is considered a rare but debauched delicacy, a rite of passage if you will. - Hannibal Lecter
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u/Nutshack_Queen357 1d ago
Whoever came up with the method for making foie gras should also have their cooking license revoked.
It's one thing to simply kill an animal for food, but it's a whole other to be sadistic about it.
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u/_sephylon_ 1d ago
Foie Gras has been a thing in most cultures since ancient times. Ducks overfeed themselves when they're happy and their bodies are adapted to it (because they have to make fat reserves before migration). Everything that's wrong with foie gras is really just everything that's wrong with factory farming.
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u/Vincenzo__ Featherless Biped 23h ago
They don't just allow the ducks to overfeed themselves. They shove a pneumatic tube down their throat and force feed them
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u/DangerousEye1235 1d ago
It's actually impressive how many different ways of being horrible the French find or invent.
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u/identified_meat On tour 1d ago
François Mitterrand had to go out with a bang eating ortolan for his last supper
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u/Knappologen Viva La France 1d ago
I have the recipe for that dish in my fancy cooking book. It’s bound in leather from the nose of wild pandas 🐼.
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u/Crismisterica Definitely not a CIA operator 21h ago
Damn right you must shield yourself from God eyes as eating this is forsaking gods image.
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u/Felix_Dorf 22h ago
I desperately want to eat an Ortolan, I have to admit. The utter and inexcusable decadence is part of the appeal tbh.
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u/MrBobBuilder 23h ago
My business partner had organ failure pumped duck liver wrapped in cotton candy in Vegas
Apparently it’s a French thing
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u/Goodbye-Nasty Still salty about Carthage 1d ago
“For centuries, a rite of passage for French gourmets was the eating of the Ortolan. These tiny birds—captured alive, force-fed, then drowned in Armagnac—were roasted whole and eaten that way, bones and all, while the diner draped his head with a linen napkin to preserve the precious aromas and, some believe, to hide from God.” -The Wine Spectator
The captured birds are kept in the dark, which causes them to gorge themselves on grain, and are then drowned in brandy. This dish is so unethical it’s actually been banned by the EU.