French chefs advocate killing rare songbirds

This video is about on ortolan bunting singing in France.

Translated from NOS TV in the Netherlands:

Cooks want illegal delicacy

Tuesday Sep 16, 2014, 19:01 (Update: 16-09-14, 19:10)

Four French chefs want to be able to serve ortolan buntings again. They want an exception on one day a year to the prohibition to eat this small songbird.

Among the chefs who call to revise the policy are two owners of three-star restaurants, Alain Ducasse and Michel Guérard.

Bones and all

There are many traditions associated with the illegal delicacy. The bird is captured alive and fattened, and is then drowned in Armagnac. Afterwards, it is roasted in an oven.

The animal should then be consumed in its entirety, bones and all.

People eating ortolan get napkins over their faces, to prevent the flavour from dissipating. But according to tradition, it is also because of shame before God because one should not eat a songbird.

Eating ortolan buntings was banned in the late nineties by the European Union as the species was threatened with extinction.