After escargots (and maybe even before them), frogs are easily the most controversial delicacy in French cuisine. The French apparently started eating them during the 11th century, when the Church allowed them as a substitute for meat during Lent. Frogs reached the height of their culinary popularity in the early 20th century, when the famous chef Escoffier (1846-1935) began serving them in his restaurants.
If you live in southern France, you’ll rarely see frog on the menu, since frogs need a cool, humid area to breed. So if you’re craving a plate of frog legs, I recommend heading to the Vosges region in northeastern France, an area blessed with mountains, rivers and thousands of pools of water where the frogs considered the tastiest in France live. There, in the town of Vittel, known mainly for its mineral water, the last Sunday of April brings the Frog Festival, organized by the “Brotherhood of Leg Tasters,” during which about 7 tons of frogs are eaten.
The Vittel Frog Festival
The idea for the festival came from René Clément, a restaurateur and owner of a frog farm, back in 1972. Thanks to his efforts, he earned the nickname “René the Frog.” Legend has it that it all started when René discovered that, every spring, frogs had “taken over” his pond. Unlike the ancient Egyptians, René didn’t panic. Instead, he started hunting frogs with great enthusiasm and selling their fried legs with fries to the town’s residents. Word of the delicacy spread across France, and once thousands of people started flocking to town to fill their bellies with plump frog legs, René decided to turn it into a festival. In the festival’s early years, only local frogs were served, but water pollution and European Union regulations hurt the region’s frog-farming industry. That forced organizers to import frogs from Asia and shorten the festival from four days to two.
I don’t know many people willing to try a frog, but almost everyone is curious to know what it tastes like. Personally, I tasted frog legs exactly once in my life, in the city of Nantes in Brittany. The frog legs looked like chicken wings and even smelled like them, but to my surprise, when I tasted them, they tasted… like fish. I haven’t tried the dish since, and it has become fairly rare in France these days. So if you’ve ever tasted it, please share your experience in the comments below.
Still hungry?
Let me point you to my restaurants page, full of places that seasoned Francophiles have recommended.