whatilearned
Read more: https://www.foodhistorypodcast.com/episode-transcripts/paris-eats-zoo-animals-siege-prussian
TIL that during a siege of Paris in 1870 by German forces, no food could be brought into the city. Eventually, they got so desperate that they ended up eating all of their zoo animals. There’s even a Christmas day menu which includes wolf, cat, dog, horse, donkey, mice, and ostrich.
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Donkey is really popular in China, especially in the north. Tastes decent.
All these animals are still eaten regularly in various parts of the world, except maybe wolf.
Ostrich steak is quite nice actually….
No they were already eating that stuff. Alexander dumas considered his cookbook to be his master work and it included recipes for ostrich and elephant. Interestingly however out of 1150 pages only a half page was dedicated to milk and two to cheese. He also died in 1870 the year of the seige.
“Papa, can we go see the monkeys today?”
“You are eating the monkeys today, son.”
Credit to Germany, the next time they went for Paris they wrapped it up in 6 weeks which saved the zoo.