On Saturday mornings, it broadcasts live French music from inside a venerable bar - sadly, no songs from the music of B.J. It's been on the air for nearly 70 years, doing everything it can to keep alive a dying language. In fact, the people who settled in the Britain of 10,000 years ago probably originally migrated there from the region now known as France.There's a little radio station in south Louisiana. Jacques, the archaeologist who spoke with National Geographic, makes one important point amidst all this debate about where frog legs really come from: At the time that those early Britons were feasting on frog legs, the region was still connected to mainland Europe (the continent didn’t separate until around 5500-6000 BCE). The frogs are then marinated in buttermilk, dredged in flour or bread crumbs, and deep fried. Meanwhile, in the United States, frog legs aren’t a widely consumed snack outside of the South, where a tradition called frog gigging still holds strong in states like Virginia and South Carolina: Hunters row out onto fresh water ponds in the dead of night and use a bright flashlight to stun the frogs, which they then spear with a long pole. In fact, they’re reviled: The Larousse Gastronomique, often referred to as the “world’s greatest encyclopedia” of French food, stipulates that “they have usually filled the British with disgust.” However, if frogs legs did originate in ancient Britain, no one in the modern UK eats them anymore.
In a brief history of the dish for The Guardian, Jon Henley wrote that, by the 1600s, frog legs were one of the most fashionable meals in the country and served at restaurants all over Paris. Soon, the local peasants, who were poor but also wanted to follow religious protocol, followed the monks’ lead and added frogs to their regular diet. But the hungry monks were clever: They found a loophole which would allow amphibians like frogs to be counted as fish, and their feasting continued. Even the Aztecs ate frogs - often paired with maize or incorporated into tamales - before the French.ĭavid Jacques, who led the excavation project in England that discovered amphibian bone fragments, told the publication that the first evidence of the French eating frog legs didn’t appear until the 12th century, “in the annals of Catholic Church.” According to legend, authorities within the church ordered French monks who they felt had become too fat to adopt a meatless diet. In Vietnam, ech chien bo, frog legs fried in butter sauce, is a popular late-night drinking snack served at sidewalk cafes. For instance, in Indonesia, a popular soup called kodok oh involves cooking frog legs in fermented soybean sauce. In fact, frog legs are popular all over Asia, especially in the southeastern countries of Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Thailand. Frog legs are still ubiquitous in Chinese food today, particularly Cantonese cuisine, where the amphibians are sometimes stir-fried or added to congee. In 2013, archeologists discovered 10,000-year-old amphibian bone fragments that had “obviously been cooked in some manner” in Wiltshire, England (near Stonehenge), according to National Geographic.īut Europe doesn’t have the monopoly when it comes to eating frog legs: People in China were probably eating frog legs as early as the first century AD. But there’s an even more important reason why France doesn’t deserve all the recognition when it comes to frog leg consumption: history.Įxactly where cooked frog legs originated is more complicated than you might imagine.
Today, the majority of frog legs eaten in France are imported frozen from Indonesia.
In 1980, France banned commercial frog hunting in order to protect the depleted frog populations. There are a couple of wrinkles in at least the Western association with France and amphibians: First of all, the frog legs consumed there haven’t even come from France for at least the past 40 years. The dish is especially popular in the Dombes region, where the frog legs are fried in garlic and butter and topped with a spritz of lemon juice. According to The Local, the French eat around 80 million frogs every year. It’s not just a stereotype: This delicacy, often grilled or deep fried and seasoned with ginger, garlic, onion, and pepper, is still popular in France.
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