“I don’t know about you but I just had a religious experience.”
Wagner says, after softly consuming the palm sized delicacy of ortolan into his mouth whole. You can’t see their faces for they are sitting with napkins over their heads (to savor the aromas, or as tradition goes, to shield your shame from God) where Axelrod and Wagner, joined by star chef Wylie Dufresne (playing himself), dine on a tiny rare songbird, the ortolan. The sounds of the fat piercing, juices flowing and bones crunching shifts to you as if through a taste-camera. The silence that prevails after the sounds subside is rich in gourmand devilry as they swallow the diabolical and delicious ortolan, lift their napkins over their heads, and look each other in the eye once more.
‘Billions’ is the NZT pill I need from time to time to feel motivated. The show is BRILLIANT in all caps. It also gives you a glimpse into the way the top 1 percent spend their money, and one of the most decadent scenes of Billions was the Feast of Ortolan.
In real life, the ortolan is indeed the rarest of delicacies. According to The New York Times, it is “the gastronomic equivalent of a visitation from the holy grail”. You eat an ortolan feet-first and whole, except for the beak. The fragile songbird from France is about the size of your thumb. It used to be served exclusively to royalty until it became illegal in 1999.
Why is Ortolan so controversial?
First, because of the way the dish is prepared. They are kept in darkness for weeks or are blinded, which causes the bird to gorge on grains and become fat, the key ingredient to its opulence when cooked. The birds are then thrown into a vat of Armagnac brandy (which both drowns and marinades them). And then, they are roasted.
Or it could be because the bird is endangered, and has consequently disappeared from the French Food Pantheon (I think this adds to its mystique). In 2014, Michelin-starred French chefs like Guerard and Alain Ducasse were fighting to get the bird on their menus to revive a culinary tradition dating back to Roman times. They wanted to be able to hunt and serve the bird for one week a year. They have been unsuccessful. However, that doesn’t stop some from eating the bird. According to The New York Times, about 30,000 ortolan are still captured and sold illegally in the South of France, with a single bird going for €150 (INR 13K). To put things in context, the black hen, the rarest and most expensive Indian chicken breed, costs INR 2K.
The Power of the Scene
I am usually a PETA-friendly advocate but there was something fiery about the scene in the show. It JUST SCREAMED POWER. The illicit pleasure, the ritual exclusivity and excess, the privilege, the subtle cruelty and sinfulness behind it, and the fact this was a form of Last Supper which Axelrod enjoyed before going to jail-there was something awe-inspiring in it which made me get up from the recliner and enjoy 2-3 hours of uninterrupted productivity. For the drive to succeed in its purest form is nothing but an appetite. Akin to carnivorism and capitalism. And all the three are cruel and gluttonous sins.
The preparation methodology horrifies me. I sincerely hope the ban on consuming ortolan is effectively implemented. But I would be lying if I said I do not yearn to sample it. I mean, just listen to how the taste is described:
“At the climax I felt the crack of its little rib cage, then the hot juices rushing out, down my gullet. Sublime.”
