Eating Frogs’ Legs

Cuisses de grenouilles – the dish so popular it gave an entire nation its nickname. In playgrounds across Britain, children imagine their stylish French counterparts carrying baguettes, wearing stripy T-shirts and eating frogs’ legs.

It comes as something of a disappointment, therefore, to discover that most French people pull a contorted or confused face at the mention of the humble amphibian.

“Really?” says Sandrine. “Maybe in the north, but not in Toulouse…”

The Huguenaught, born and bred in the north, seems equally bemused. “Why is everyone always asking about that? I do not know where they serve it, no.”

Time and time again I scoured the menus for this delicacy – but to no avail. France hunted its edible frog to the point of extinction and the state banned French frog farming. Indonesia now supplies their signature dish.

Perhaps the whole thing is a myth, an emblem that only lives on in cartoons where the Rosbifs (Brits) still wear bowler hats and carry umbrellas. Except….a trip to the supermarket’s frozen food section reveals the truth. It isn’t all a joke – you really can buy frogs here. Most are pre-skinned (thankfully) and sold in bags big enough to cater for a whole neighbourhood. Their surface has a silvery-pink tinge and each one fits comfortably into your palm.

We eventually settled on a simple recipe involving garlic, lemon and breadcrumbs. Convention describes most new meat as tasting like chicken, but here I would disagree.

Frog flesh has a bit more spring, something closer to flakes of white fish rather than the fibres of a chicken leg. It tasted light and refreshing – perfect for a summer’s day.

Like shelling prawns, however, finding the edible part is fiddly, making frog a summer specialty, I think. The frustration level is just too high to bother with in the face of ravenous hunger on a dark winter’s night.

With a barbecue, however, they’re perfect. And by eating frogs’ legs in France, on however small a scale, I have fulfilled something of a childhood dream.