Ortolan bunting - Songbird dish that is meant to be eaten with a towel draped over the diner’s head
Ortolan bunting - Songbird dish that is meant to be eaten with a towel draped over the diner’s head
You're viewing a single thread.
The traditional way French gourmands eat ortolans is to cover their heads and face with a large napkin or towel while consuming the bird. The purpose of the towel is debated. Some claim it is to retain the maximum aroma with the flavour as they consume the entire bird at once, others have stated "Tradition dictates that this is to shield – from God's eyes – the shame of such a decadent and disgraceful act", and others have suggested the towel simply hides the consumers spitting out bones.
Hide your sins from God with this one weird trick!
In Swabia, in southern Germany, there is a dish called Maultaschen, meat filled dumplings, which are also called Herrgottsbescheißerle ("Lord God Cheaters"), as the meat is wrapped in dough to be invisible to god.
Was that to get around the no meat on Fridays rule? Could have just eaten an otter (it lives in water, so it must be a fish).
Yes, in the past there were a lot of days were it was forbidden to eat meat, not only on Fridays and during the 40 days before Easter.
Also beaver and turtle counted as fish.
Bescheißerle - shitters? That's great.
Yes, jemanden bescheißen would literally translate "to shit onto somebody", but it usually means jemanden betrügen i.e. "to cheat/betray somebody", so Bescheißerle literally would translate to "shitters" but mean "cheaters".
Cheating the rules imposed by the church somehow has tradition, e.g. a Pharisäer (Pharisees) is a coffe with rum and whipped cream, similarly to an Irish Coffee.