ROFL and EEEW.
The articles goes onto to state that after he kisses and licks them he stuffs the little frogs in his mouth for a while before his spits them out.
The health inspector was NOT amused. It’s all caught on video.
Escoffier designed the Brigade de Cuisine based on military principles. And he died of old age in 1935.
Some rules are stupid and take forever to correct. Take pork. It's perfectly safe to eat modern pork loin cooked rare in the center. It took the FDA decades to lower the minimum acceptable temp from 165F. Trichinosis has not been a problem in the US for decades. We wiped it out.
Probably, he went the wrong way around to explain it, but he might just be frustrated with some stupid rules.
/johnny