Wow! Have you come down from the adventurous high we were on last week, Dungeon Meshi Maniacs? Gnocchi AND frog legs in a single meal? What an unheard of combination. Well, unheard of to me at least. But in my defense, I don't get out much. I do have to agree with Laois, this was very yummy.
But this got me a little stuck, DMMs. I'm not really sure what to write about this week. Gnocchi and frog legs are interesting foods but without going too far into the weeds the histories are very straight forward. Gnocchi is a dumpling dish that goes all the way back to Ancient Rome. While they didn't have potatoes at the time this was an easy dish. Egg, a simple dough and that's all you need. It was perfect for the poor and soldiers to eat. So much so that it was considered a "cucina povera" or poor cuisine. Ugh, that's a concept that always gets under my skin, DMMs. Some jerk thinks that just because it's a food poor people can afford then it must be bad. Thankfully they are alway wrong and eventually everyone else finds out that good food is GOOD regardless of economic factors.
Focusing only on age, DMMs, frog legs are even older. We've been eating frog as long as the first humanoid saw a frog and thought, "I bet I can eat that."
And that's about as long as we have been licking toads! I'm sure there are many stories about how cultures came to eat frog but the one I'm going to focus on comes from the most famous frog eating country in Europe; France! As the legend goes it was the 12th Century and some monks were sitting around doing what monks do best; searching for loopholes in God's commands! As you may or may not know monks cannot eat meat on Friday during Lent. Problem is, they love meat! Da rules say the monks could eat fish but fish because it ain't meat. However, fish can be hard to come by in the center of France. So they came up with a perfect idea. Frog ain't meat! They aren't cows but they also aren't on the list of "DO NOT EAT" that God came up with. Finding a blindspot the monks started to chow down on frog. The surrounding towns wanted in on the "not meat" the monks had discovered and started eating too. The chefs love a good challenge so they set to creating the best dishes they could for frog and the rest is history! Delicious history!
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Such a cool animal. Even when GIANT! But while gnocchi enjoyed it's time in the sun, frog has taken odd turns in the West. France loved frog therefor their oldest foe, the British, hated it! They saw frogs as dirty swamp dwellers and anyone that ate them were gross. Food bullying is not cool, DMMs. This viewpoint is something we deal with to this day. Seriously, ask a friend or coworker if they want to grab some frog legs later. Chances are, if you aren't in Louisiana, they are going to act like you asked them if they wanted to eat some spiders. Why is Louisiana different? They were settled by the French so they know the correct way to eat!
Another issue with eating frog is a bit sadder. It's becoming harder to find good frogs. The biggest contributor is environmental. Frogs are early indicators of environmental damage. They are easily poisoned by changes to their habitat. This makes them either inedible or dead. Neither are great options! The second problem is the one thing we humans are great at, over hunting. Thanks to eating too many frogs too quickly combined with the damage to their environment the frogs aren't able to reproduce quickly enough. Cuisine concerns aside we seriously need out amphibian friends. They are our first line of defense against our greatest enemy. The mosquito! We need the animals that eat these blood sucking virus spreaders. Remembering to care for our food source should be the main concern of every good chef, DMM. If you take anything away from this rambling update it's that.
So that's enough for this week. Come back next week when we cook a simple but important recipe. See you the...what? I'm forgetting something? You want to see the most famous scene from this chapter? Fine. Don't say I never give you anything, DMMS!
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