Frog legs are one of the traditional and ancient dishes of French cuisine
The great Escoffier named the recipe for frog soup "Nymphs at Aurora", Alexandre Dumas advised garnishing the soup with fried frogs, and modern chefs also include "frog" recipes in their menus. The observer of the portal RFI tells about the main delicacy of French cuisine.
"I'll tell you straight to your face that I won't eat nasty things," Sobakevich says to Chichikov. "Even if you coat a frog with sugar, I won't put it in my mouth, and I won't take oysters either: I know what an oyster looks like. All this was invented by German and French doctors, I would hang them for it!" And right away he told about the "scoundrel cook" who learned from the French to skin a cat and serve it instead of hare. Oysters, snails, and most importantly frogs – in the minds of many peoples, the French are associated with the consumption of strange products. It's not far from a cat.
"Frog-eaters" – that's what the English came up with to insult the French. And all because frog legs are one of the traditional and ancient dishes of French cuisine. Among European countries, France is the largest consumer of frog legs. And it imports three to four thousand tons of legs annually.
In French and European gastronomy, frogs are first mentioned in the 16th century. It is quite possible that peasants ate them even before that. In both cases, it was about amphibians that were simply caught in a pond. However, by the 20th century, the number of amphibians had decreased – not only because the population and its appetites had grown, but also as a result of active human activity. Swamps and ponds were drained, frogs had nowhere to eat and breed.
But the French treat their frogs with care – whether they are edible or not. Catching has been strictly regulated since 1980. And in the same years, the first breeding experiments were carried out in the west of the country, and after selection, the choice fell on the species R. Ridibunda ("lake frog"). This is one of the largest species of amphibians on Earth, the lake frog (not to be confused with the common pond frog) can reach 17 cm. And recently, the authorities of the city of Saint-Malo blocked an access road for a whole month so that frogs could freely reach their favorite pond, where it is more convenient for them to breed.
The majority of frogs in France are now imported. And they are supplied mainly by Indonesia. From there come three to four thousand tons of frozen legs annually, as well as 700-800 tons of live frogs. To supply France with frogs, farms for their breeding have appeared in many countries. They also exist in Russia and Ukraine.
French appetites are dangerous for the ecology of Indonesia, where the wild frog is gradually disappearing. Annemarie Ohler, an employee of the Museum of Natural History, decided to analyze the DNA of legs brought from Indonesia and found that less than 1% of the labels correspond to what is written on them. The frogs turn out to be completely different species, and the main imported species is much smaller than the lake frog. For the eater, a frog is a frog, even if you coat it with sugar, but for a scientist, these are two completely different animals, like a cow and a sheep. At the same time, French frogs are much more expensive.
And as for the English, who mocked the French and invented the word "frog-eaters", modern archaeology has shown that they were wrong, and before criticizing others, they should have looked at themselves. It turned out that the ancestors of the English ate frogs as early as 7500 BC. Gnawed frog bones were found along with bovine and fish bones during excavations at Stonehenge.
"Frogs in the form of chicken"
French cookbooks have mentioned frog dishes since the 17th century. In 1651, La Varenne (Le Cuisinier français) suggests serving fried frog legs on the bone as breaded lollipops on a stick. Modern chefs also use this advice. Twenty years later, an anonymous but very popular author L.S.R. gives a recipe for "frogs in the form of chicken" with fried parsley and lemon slices. And even English chefs at that time did not ignore frogs, suggesting serving them with gooseberries, grapes and artichokes.
In the 19th century, the most famous French chef Antonin Carême recorded in his collection of French recipes a broth of snails and frogs, which, as he claimed, also helps with cough. Frogs are also in the Larousse Gastronomique (1938). Carême's successor Auguste Escoffier prepared in 1890 for the Prince of Wales at the Savoy restaurant the dish "Nymphs at Aurora". Under the beautiful name hid frog legs in a sauce with paprika, the color of which was called "aurora" in French – the color of the sky during the morning dawn.
And major chefs, from Georges Blanc to Robuchon, include "frog" recipes in their books. In the magnificent Franco-Belgian-Quebec animated film, three Frenchwomen in New York – aging music hall singers nostalgically eat frogs for breakfast, lunch and dinner, making soup, main course and even dessert from them. In other words, the frog was still coated with sugar, as Sobakevich feared.
In the "Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine", between articles devoted to shallots and pork chop, Alexandre Dumas publishes an article about frogs:
There are many species of frogs, which differ from each other in size, color, and habitat. Only water frogs have excellent taste. They should be caught in clear water, and they must be well-fed, thick, fleshy, green, and covered with small black spots. Many medieval doctors opposed eating frogs. Nevertheless, these animals have white, tender meat that contains a gelatinizing substance, softer and less heavy than other types of meat. In the 17th century, frogs were served at the best tables. A century later, a certain Auvergnat named Simon amassed a considerable fortune from frogs, which he fattened in his homeland and then sold to the leading houses of Paris, where this product was in fashion.
In Italy and Germany, these amphibians are quite widely eaten. The English, who are horrified by such a dish and who, without a doubt, for this very reason sixty years ago drew caricatures depicting the French eating frogs, need only read the following excerpt from the history of the island of Santo Domingo, written by an Englishman named Atwood. “On Martinique,” he claims, “there are many toads that are eaten. The English and French prefer them to chickens. These amphibians are used to make fricassees and soups.”
Frogs are prepared in a variety of ways. But mostly they are used to make soups, which are very healthy. Some ladies even eat these soups specifically to maintain the freshness of their facial skin.
Interestingly, Dumas mentions Santo Domingo. His own grandmother was a black slave there, and his father was also born there, later redeemed from slavery and becoming a Napoleonic general. But let us return to the frogs.
Dumas offers a soup recipe and advises “to make a border for the soup from frog legs,” and concludes with the words: “Pour the stew with strong broth, cook until done, and then garnish it with fried frogs.” The soup is followed by a fricassee recipe: “Cook the frogs like chicken fricassee.”
Frog for Valentine's Day
Nowadays, hardly anyone believes that you can preserve your complexion by eating frogs. And no one eats frog soups anymore. But legs with garlic and parsley, fried in butter, can quite be found. The frog has never disappeared from the menus of traditional French cuisine restaurants, especially haute cuisine.
Restaurants in Lyon have persistently continued and still continue to serve frogs. Nearby, in the historic region of Dombes, the frog is one of the most common dishes. The area is very low-lying and marshy, a paradise for frogs. In the Middle Ages, monks dug about a thousand ponds in Dombes for fish farming, and the frogs naturally took advantage of this. Next to Dombes is another region called Bresse, but there they raise not frogs, which chefs later compare to chicken, but real chickens, and the best in the world—Bresse chickens.
But this is traditional cuisine, and frog legs have appeared in recent years on the tables of young chefs as well. The restaurant of Alexandre Gauthier, considered the leader of his generation, is called Grenouillère, “The Frog Pond,” and frogs regularly appear on his menu. Stéphanie Le Quellec, also one of the most famous of her generation, also serves frog legs at the Prince des Galles restaurant. Is it in memory of Escoffier's nymphs prepared for the heir to the throne?
If we take simpler cuisine, in Paris there has long been a restaurant called Roger La Grenouille, “Roger the Frog,” known for the frivolous morals of its patrons and excellent fried frog legs with garlic. Now it is a touristy, though still tasty, place, but in the 1980s–1990s it was a unique restaurant that Parisians still remember. Here is what Parisian translator Elena Lavanant recalls:
It was a shed with a ceiling hung with pots, dirty bras, all walls plastered with money from different countries and condoms. The menu was on a slate board under the ceiling at the back of the room; customers were given binoculars to read it. They offered frogs Provençal and kidneys in Madeira with fried potatoes, incredibly delicious. The atmosphere was something else, half-drunk elderly waitresses with deep décolletage. When paying the bill, they gave souvenir gifts—lead figurines of frogs in pornographic poses.
Some time ago, another restaurant specializing in frogs opened in Paris—Rainettes. Frogs are served there as tapas, battered and fried, and in sauces, and the dish names are those of exotic frog species, and there is even a special Valentine's Day frog menu—apparently, the frog will turn into a handsome prince. True, this is not provided for by traditional French cuisine.