Nightingale, foie gras - the luxurious and cruel culinary delights of the rich

Grilled nightingale and foie gras are the most luxurious and sophisticated dishes in France, but to get these dishes, the animals have to go through a period of horror and are treated extremely cruelly. Fortunately, these dishes are now banned.

Grilled nightingale

Nightingale meat is prepared by top chefs and appears on the menus of the most upscale restaurants. Photo: Tumblr

Grilled nightingale is a high-class dish, reserved for the rich and sophisticated, and is prepared with great care. Although it is considered a dish that represents class and sophistication in the world, behind it lies a horrifying cruelty.

Nightingales are famous for their beautiful singing. They are only as small as the palm of your hand and often live in warm climates of Europe, especially France, Italy, and Spain. During the migration season, when the birds fly back to Africa, hunters set many traps in the fields to catch the birds.

The captured birds are kept in crowded cages to prevent them from jumping and moving, and are stuffed with nutritious foods until they are fat, 2 to 4 times their normal weight.

Grilled nightingale is an extremely luxurious dish for the rich (Photo: Mask).

The birds are then submerged in Armagnac to slowly kill them, allowing the meat to absorb the flavour of the wine and the skin to turn an olive-yellow colour. The cook only needs to add a little seasoning and grill for 6-8 minutes to complete the dish.

Eating the nightingale is also a ritual. Each person must cover their head with a white cloth, then put the whole bird in their mouth with the head facing out. Partial covering is done to avoid embarrassment to those around them. Many believe that this helps them hide from the eyes of God.

This delicacy is no longer available. Hunting and eating nightingales has been banned across the EU since 2007. The French government has announced that the maximum fine for this act is 6,000 euros (about 150 million VND).

It is believed that the white scarves covering their heads help them avoid God's eyes when eating small and innocent creatures (Photo: MAXPPP).

Foie gras

Foie gras is one of the most sophisticated and classy dishes of French cuisine, often served in high-class restaurants, appearing on the list of the most expensive dishes in the world.

Geese in cramped cages are force-fed through tubes (Photo: woodstocksanctuary)

To get their fatty livers, the geese are brutally force-fed. Three times a day, the breeders open their mouths and insert feeding tubes into the male geese’s throats to force-feed them more than 2 kg of grain each time. This force-feeding causes the goose livers to become fatty, 10 times larger than a normal goose’s liver. The fat livers make it difficult for them to breathe and move. The poor geese are locked in small, crowded cages with barely enough room to move.

According to a Newsweek reporter, the geese at one foie gras farm looked “listless” and “often lame from foot infections caused by standing on metal grates during tube feeding.” They also suffered from esophageal injuries from the excessive amount of food being forced down their throats, broken sternums, fungal infections, diarrhea, impaired liver function, and extreme stress. Some died from pneumonia or choking on grains.

According to VNE, foie gras is excellent because of its rich, smooth, and melt-in-your-mouth buttery texture, unlike the dense, dry texture of regular liver. However, today, many places have banned it and diners cannot enjoy this dish.

Fatty goose livers are used to prepare high-class dishes (Photo: Newsweek).

In 2012, the state of California (USA) officially enacted a law banning the sale and consumption of foie gras. Cruel fattening is also considered illegal in countries such as Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Australia, India, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Finland, South Africa, and Sweden.

According to Vietnamnet