Eat like a politician!
Koop's Bird Flu Diet
Load Up On l'Ortolon (in Paris or DC) and/or Barbequed Wings in Cleveland... Because Here Comes H5N1! Wolf down up those birds while you can or forever hold your napkin… linen, that is!
By Jeff Koopersmith

March 4, 2006 / PHILADELPHIA (apj.us)/ — It's high time for those mischievous French to get their comeuppance, courtesy of the birds they love to eat—especially the tiny yellow songbirds called "buntings" in England and "l'ortolon" in France.

This dish became more infamous lately because it was the last meal that former French president François Mitterrand ordered—never to eat anything else again for ten days, and then die. To him it was Holy Grail of wild poultry, and a must for any serious epicurean or blowhard politician. L'ortolon is considered, by the French, one of the world's greatest delicacies, although its popularity has not as yet spread to Nouveau York—at least to my own pedestrian knowledge.

I suggest that Avian Flu has been thought up by the birds themselves. If bird flu is a plot conceived by the winged creatures, then the French—who earlier this week uncovered their own first reported cases of avian flu—are getting what they merit.

You might recall that those tiny lemon-colored singing birds are seen throughout French and Italian art history as symbols of incorruptibility and (for our red state readers) the love of Jesus Christ.

Yet, centuries ago, a clan of French hooligans near Bordeaux began to ambush these little birds by hiding tiny traps at the tops of trees and snaring the birds as they traveled South to Africa to stay warm.

They took them alive—not from mercy or to cage them as pets and listen to their warbling, but instead to gorge the birds on seed, fruit and other birdie delicacies, fattening them to four times their size à la the "beccafino" techniques of ancient and modern Rome and, of course, preparing the cow to become a Kobe beef steak in Japan.

To add further drama, the little birds have the eyes poked out first—or are kept blinded in a box—while gaining weight. This keeps them from fighting and moving around too much—thus losing caloric value.

Then, the larger fair-feathered songster is abruptly drowned, conscious, in Cognac—preferably Armagnac.

The "poetry" here, according to gastronomes, is the transformation of the bird from a symbol of innocence to a proof of French excess and a plunge in the abyss of Hell.

One might think the recipe to properly prepare the fat little bird is complex. No. One simply tosses them—whole—into a small pottery casserole dish and then into a highly heated oven for just seven to ten minutes.

Et voilà!

The macabre drama continues with the clandestine practice of eating the little thing with your head covered in cloth (today, a linen napkin; in yesteryear, an embroidered cloth made for this purpose). Some think this is a sign of shame at one's gluttony, but I would guess it is more of a guarantee not to share the "exquisiteness" of the meal with anyone lest you not be called avaricious, which is all but a badge of honor in France.

Of course the little now-silent head must dangle from your mouth.

Then with a crisp snap, you bite it off and it falls to your plate where it can be eaten (or not) later on. But first, upon presentation and while still piping hot, one places the entire quarter-pounder into one's mouth and lets it sit on the tongue while one inhales and exhales to cool it. The purpose of this—and only the French could think this up—is to allow the melting fat oozing from the bird's neck to drip down your throat. Once cool enough, you must then begin to chew it up.

Remember, you now have the entire bird in your mouth—and it might take as long as twenty minutes to one half hour to gnash your way through the breast bones, wings and inner organs.

It is rumored that Mitterrand claimed he could "taste the bird's life history" as he chewed in the shadow of his head-covering.

Needless to say, l'ortolon has been banned in France with fines that can run into the thousands of dollars.
And naturally, this makes the dish even more scrumptious to the French.

The disappointing chef Jean-Louis Palladin, who ran the kitchen at the most over-the-top overrated eatery in Washington DC, once smuggled 400 little l'ortolon to America for a dinner hosted as his once-famous restaurant at (where else?) the Watergate—again proving the fact that politicians, always bloodthirsty, enjoy eating the young.

Palladin, who poisoned me more than once on his splat, bless his dead heart, did not feel that covering your head as you ate the tiny songbirds had anything to do with shame or guilt. He claimed you covered your head so you could concentrate on the fat going down your throat. "Like when you take the Body of Christ into your mouth from the priest's hand in church, and you think about God. Now that is what eating l'Ortolon is really most like."

How apropos.

The hullabaloo sponsored by the UN's World Health Organization and several concerned world leaders surrounding the H5N1 virus—aka "bird flu" or "avian flu"—seems to have tapered in direct relation to the increase in genuine bird flu reportage and the quickly spreading bird flu itself as flocks of feathered flyers begin their disease-prone travels to warmer climes at which to spend the approaching Spring.

Naturally, our President is busy traveling around the Middle and Near East instead of preparing us what promises to be one heckuva a mess—and perhaps the deaths of thousands of Americans as this flu become a pandemic and sweeps across the world.

Several groups of my friends have considered the bird flu in myriad ways. My business pals are spending hours thinking about how to quickly form high-tech, large-volume, chicken-killing machinery that will be in high-demand worldwide once it is proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that bird flue can hop from birds to beasts and finally to human beings. The beasts are already down with it and so are human beings. But right now our governments are a least "claiming" that the virus has not jumped directly from fowl to man. The diseased bird must be eaten to gain the flu as of this writing.

But we are assured by the National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization and Steven Colbert that Avian Flu is just around the corner.

My vegetarian friends are laughing on the inside and clucking on the outside—worried about bloodthirsty relatives and associates who continued to crave flesh asking more than often whether we learned our lessons with Mad Cow disease.

Well, of course not. How many people do you know that got it?

Bird Flu, however, is a different story.

Thus far, this flu has only impacted Asia in any appreciable way. While billions of cute of little chicklets and their parents have been slaughtered in the mysterious East, causing fear amongst kindergartners worldwide eager for a baby chick come Easter. nary a parakeet has been gassed in the United States—at least that we know of. Liberals and some PETA members are planning to surround the White House with rotting chicken carcasses to place the blame squarely where they believe it belongs—the Bush's kitchen and the White House Mess.

This week, the proverbial poop hit the fan.

First came the above-mentioned initial cases of avian flu found in France, which immediately put the kibosh on several hundred ortolons parties where people were denied the ghoulish pleasure of hiding under a napkin in shame while crunching on little dead birds. Second, about 25 once-friendly nations banned French chickens from their sideboards—infuriating the French who must believe that unlike the rest of the universe, France is protected. How dare we NOT eat their chickens?

Who and what will be impacted in the Untied States once the bird flu sets in?

Well, you can count on a lot of people with low IQs in red state hen houses re-applying for grant money. You can wager that the corporate incarnation of the "Colonel" will get the message and start serving spare ribs. ChikFilet will become CatFilet. And mom will be serving Thanksgiving steak, no Christmas goose.

I for one don't care much for chickens or turkeys. They are filthy animals raised in despicable squalor in factory barns by the billion, or they are "free-range" (which is another way of saying they eat their own excrement for dessert). Chickens and turkeys are largely ugly birds—but alas, the beautiful little l'ortolon—now he will be sorely missed.

Oh, and by the way: start getting used to turtle and iguana eggs. They're tastier than the ones from alligators or crocodiles.

Bon appétit!

JEFF KOOPERSMITH is a political consultant, opinion research authority, policy analyst, and self-described "renegade lobbyist."