Would you eat a songbird… after you’ve tortured it?

Four French chefs want the cruel practice of eating ortolan, a tiny songbird, to be un-banned once a year.

Four French chefs are requesting a waiver to serve a long-banned delicacy – a small songbird called the ortolan that fans used to devour, bones and all, while wearing a napkin over their heads. It’s even said to have been part of former French president Francois Mitterrand’s last meal before he died in 1996.

The request for the once-a-year waiver is being lodged among others by Alain Ducasse, the internationally acclaimed chef with a top three-star rating from the Michelin gourmet dining guide, Le Parisien newspaper reported.

The ortolan, a seed-eating songbird that is little bigger than a child’s hand, has been banned from restaurant menus in much of Europe since 1999, mainly due of the practice of capturing and preparing the bird for consumption, which has been deemed cruel.

Apparently delicious: The ortolan, long regarded a delicacy in French cuisine though banned in the EU since 1999, still has many fans.

The customary French way of preparing ortolan consists of: first capturing it in the wild, blinding its eyes with a skewer, placing it in a cage so that its movements are restricted, then force-feeding it until it’s four times its original size, before drowning it in Armagnac alcohol and roasting it whole in the oven.

Connoisseurs of the dish wear a large, usually white, napkin over their head while eating, putting the bird’s whole body in one’s mouth – except for the head and beak – and biting it off at its neck. Some say the napkin serves to conceal the sight of diners spitting out bones, others that it helps to seal in aromas, and still others that it serves to fend off the shame of being seen by God eating a songbird.

Regardless of the sin, what makes the ortolan such a gourmand’s treat lies in the three waves of flavour and sensation when one chows down on it: the bird’s sweet flesh and crunchy bones, the bitterness of its innards, and lastly the Armagnac in its lungs.

The request for the right to serve up ortolan one day or one weekend a year would be lodged in coming days with the French authorities, Le Parisien newspaper cited one of Ducasse’s fellow backers, three-star chef Michel Guerard, as saying. A representative for Ducasse did not immediately answer a request for comment. – Reuters