After what I thought was a rather boring food meme that I posted about myself the other day, I got several messages asking for more details about some of the experiences I've had over the years. This was funny for two reasons: 1) that I had no idea anybody was interested, and 2) nobody ever leaves comments on this blog and everyone sends me messages on Facebook or Twitter instead.
I will say at the outset that all of this is fiction and for novelty and entertainment purposes only. If summoned to court, subpoenad by Congress or attacked by militants from PETA, I will just say I made it all up. So...
Eating Ortolan
Although eating this little, succulent songbird has been a part of French gastronomy for probably centuries, it's illegal now. The main reason is that the little bird is so delicious that it's now endangered, or so they say.
It also might have something to do with the way the bird is prepared. Every chef has a different story about how this bird is "raised", but they all have similar elements. The bird is trapped in the wild. They either blind the bird or put it in a dark shack full of food, where the panicked bird gorges itself until it puffs up into a delicious little butterball. When it's fat enough, they drown it in a snifter of Armagnac, pluck it, and ship it off to the restaurant.
My adventure started when on a message board I met a young French chef who was working in a well-known restaurant in NYC. We struck up a conversation about the things we had yet to try and I mentioned ortolan. He thought it was hilarious that some random American who grew up in Ohio even knew what the stupid thing was. As the conversation went on he told me that it was indeed worth the trouble to obtain, and that even then people were still eating them, albeit in secret, in dark alleys and hidden kitchens.
A few months after that conversation, he mentioned to me that some of the patrons he had on the side (apparently working in a NYC kitchen doesn't really cover the expenses... who knew?) had offered him a decent amount of money to obtain some ortolan, smuggle it into the US and cook it for them. There was no way of course I had even close to the money they had offered him, but I wished him luck on his endeavor. A few weeks later he wrote to me and said he indeed had played Pablo Escofood and obtained the bird, snuck it through customs and fed his patrons. Apparently they were quite delighted with the experience.
He had consumed one of the birds during the event and said that he wanted to do it again. I informed him that in a few months I was going to be in NYC for another food event (buying a friend the burger at DB Bistro Moderne in return for helping me close a deal). He told me that by all means he would be ready to serve me one when I was in town visiting, and that there was no charge because in his words "I cannot believe some corn fed Asian American boy knows of this dish. This is complete blasphemy, and me letting you taste this is also blasphemy. If you meet any other French chefs, do not tell them I let you have this." We'll just call him Blasphemous Chef from now on.
Fast forward a few months and I found myself sitting in my hotel room in Midtown. I had spent the morning in bed and got up in time to meet my friend to buy her the burger. I spent the afternoon on foot (seriously, I love wandering cities) meandering my way to Katz's Deli, where I spent the better part of an hour devouring a double three meat platter. I got another one to go and rolled my way back to my hotel room where I sat watching television for a few hours in a nitrite-induced haze.
My phone rang at about 11.
"Are you ready? Well, you cannot really be ready for this, but are you ready?" Blasphemous Chef was giggling. I don't like it when chefs giggle unless they are pastry chefs. "Here is the address. Take a cab, you don't want to walk here."
The cab driver asked me TWICE if I really wanted to go to the address I had written down. Finally he decided I looked a little too insane to NOT want to go there, so off we went. I ended up exiting the cab somewhere in Brooklyn. It was sort of dark and the area was pretty scary looking. I stood there staring at the building that I was supposed to go to. Who was I looking for? What was I looking for?
"Hey. HEY! You're Yod, right, you stick out like a McDonald's in Paris, you know? Follow me."
Blasphemous Chef led me down into a restaurant that was below street level. The place reeked of fried chicken. Ever been to a chicken shack in the bad part of town? It smelled like that. Only a few lights were on inside.
"This is the only place you could find to cook ortolan?"
"Hey, kiss my ass buddy. It's not like I can ask my employer if I can use their four star kitchen to cook an illegal bird I smuggled here in my luggage, huh? At least they cook fowl here. Next time I find a vegetarian place, you can complain about how it smells like lentils."
We went into the kitchen and Blasphemous Chef yelled out a curt introduction of sorts.
"This is the American from Ohio. He wants to try ortolan because he saw it in a magazine. Normally he would be having chicken nuggets and TV dinners instead."
While Blasphemous Chef fiddled with the oven and the birds, I struck up a conversation with the other people standing there in the kitchen. I was being joined on this adventure by:
Gourmand Busboy, early 20's, a Mexican that worked as a busboy in the same restaurant as Blasphemous Chef. Gourmand Busboy was well known in that restaurant for his extensive food knowledge and decidedly horrible kitchen skills. Apparently the head chef had more than once attempted to give Gourmand Busboy a chance at cooking, but the poor guy had failed miserably each time. Nevertheless, Gourmand Busboy was always recruited to try new dishes they were experimenting on, something he termed as priceless and well worth the crappy wage he was earning otherwise.
Chefolester, late 30's (maybe), a tall blonde that had once been Blasphemous Chef's girlfriend or sugar mama. Perhaps both. In talking to the crew assembled it became pretty clear that she had a thing for anyone that could poach a lobster in butter.
Mister Bitter, mid 20's, a sous chef at a very well known restaurant owned by a very love-or-hate celebrity chef. Mister Bitter spent the entire night complaining about his job and his boss's restaurant empire. I suspected he was going to try and seduce Chefolester at some point during the night, but that would have required him shutting up about work which did not happen.
We chatted for a few more minutes and suddenly Blasphemous Chef was yelling and waving his arms around.
"Get to the table! Sit down! Ortolan ready! GOGOGOGOGGOGOGOGGOGOGOOOOOOOOOOOO"
Apparently you have to eat these things straight out of the oven. So we ran and sat down.
Blasphemous Chef ran in and dropped a roasting pan down in the middle of the table. We could hear the birds sizzling in the pan.
"Ok, I will make this quick. Put the whole bird into your mouth feet first. You will burn yourself, just be ok with it, it is worth it. Put a napkin over your face or not, nobody cares, and God can not see you in here anyway. You should bite off at least the beak, only crazy people don't bite off the head too, is how I feel. In cooking school, there was this one guy, he decided to eat the head. I believe he works at Chili's now."
After finishing his quick instructional speech, Blasphemous Chef sat down, put a bird in his mouth, put a napkin over his head and threw his hands in the air (I take the last part as either his being dramatic or having watched too much Jesus Christ Superstar). That left the other four of us staring at each other.
Gourmand Busboy and Chefolester reached for a bird at the same time. Gourmand Busboy immediately put the bird in his mouth and started breathing and puffing like mad trying to cool down the very not at a temperature safe for human consumption bird that was in his mouth. Seeing this, Chefolester sat there holding the bird by the head between her thumb and index finger, just staring (and probably burning the heck out of her fingertips).
"I don't think that's going to fit into my mouth, nothing that big fits in my mouth." she said very dryly.
Blasphemous Chef suddenly stood up and bent over. At first I thought he was choking, but then I realized he was just trying not to laugh and attempting to keep the bird in his mouth. After a few seconds he stood up straight and ripped the napkin off of his head and glared and pointed at Chefolester. She looked at him like he was crazy. He gave her the middle finger, sat back down and put the napkin back on his head.
Chefolester put the bird into her mouth but only got half of it in (seriously, the bird is not that big, I don't know what her problem is). So she just sat there with half of the bird sticking out of her mouth, and she looked sort of cross-eyed as she was trying to look at it. Very strange.
By this point Mister Bitter was once again ranting about his workplace and had still not grabbed a bird. I figured this was because once he put the bird into his mouth he would actually have to shut up about the restaurant he worked it. I still despise the celebrity chef he worked for to this day as his crappy restaurant empire forced me to deal with Mister Bitter.
After a couple minutes I realized that my dream of enjoying ortolan without Mister Bitter's manifesto in the background was not going to happen. I picked up the still nuclear hot bird and slid it into my mouth. The thing was way hotter than I thought it was going to be, but luckily I eat soup while near boiling so this wasn't much of a problem. I bit the head off and threw it at Mister Bitter, draped the napkin over my face and leaned back.
At this stage of the ortolan I noticed two things: 1) it was burning the @!$@# out of my mouth and 2) this was the best fat ever. I'm not sure how to describe ortolan fat except to say that it has the same mouthfeel that you get from the fat in a piece of good o-toro. Also the force feeding did a good job, as there was a seemingly endless drip of fat coming out of the bird. I eventually figured out that if you do a slow inhale and exhale constantly during the first 5 minutes of eating, you won't burn yourself.
Eventually the fat was all sucked out of the bird and it was time to chew. This was very strange as remember, this bird is cooked and eaten whole. I would best describe it as a more tender version of quail meat with very crunchy, brittle bones. Think sardine bones but a tiny bit harder. This went on for a couple minutes until I got to the insides of the bird.
By this point my mind was getting swimmy as the entire experience was almost too much to handle. I was now crunching through the organs, and I tasted just a hint of brandy when I must have chewed the lungs. I could taste different flavors and feel different textures as I chewed through what was left of the bird. I found myself wanting some more flavor from the guts of the bird, mainly salt. I considered lifting up the napkin and looking for a salt shaker, then decided against it as I already got enough crap for being a stupid American.
Eventually I swallowed the last of the ortolan and took off the napkin. Blasphemous Chef and Chefolester were making out in his chair. Gourmand Busboy had pulled out some sort of notebook and was furiously scribbling down his tasting notes. Mister Bitter was still sitting in exactly the same position and hadn't appeared to have moved at all.
I looked at the middle of the table and saw that Mister Bitter's ortolan was still sitting in the roasting pan.
"Are you going to eat that?"
"No," Mister Bitter answered, "I'm thinking I don't want that."
"Well then, in that case..."
I reached for the last bird. As my hand was hovering over the roasting pan, Chefolester realized what I was doing, turned around and slapped my hand away.
She shot me an evil glare.
"Do you realize how many times I had to f--- this guy to get him to do this?" Chefolester screeched at me, "I f---ing earned that bird, literally. My bird!"
Not one to stand between a cougar and her prey, I thanked Blasphemous Chef and went on my way.
