Ah. The Ortolan Bunting. Francois Mitterrand's last, and highly illegal, meal.
Ortolans are an endangered species. A tiny songbird about the size of your thumb.
My introduction to them was in an Anthony Bourdain book, in which he and a few famous chefs were invited to dine (illegally) on Ortolan in the company of another famous chef in New York.
According to this NPR audio bite and transcript, Ortolan is prepared by drowning it alive in Armagnac. It is then cooked, plucked, and then served whole, and eaten bones, head, and all.
"People typically will eat it under a white napkin. And part of it is to create a little capsule for yourself so that all of the aromas and tastes are captured in the space before you. But also people traditionally ate beneath the cloth napkin because they didn't want to have God see them eating these little songbirds."
After Mitterrand ate his Ortolan, he didn't have anything else to eat for the remaining ten days of his life.
I first heard of Anthony Bourdain when he did a culinary travelogue of Uzbekistan, where I was deployed 2003-04. I only got to travel outside our compound in Karshi-Khanabad twice, to the ancient city of Samarqand. He sampled the food, attended an Uzbek wedding, and made the point that the further Uzbekistan goes from its secular Soviet days, the closer it moves toward Islamicization.
The lovely young Uzbek women I spoke with didn’t give a rip about Islam and dressed accordingly for the 100 plus degree weather; midriff-baring tops were not uncommon. They regarded Afghans as primitive woman-hating savages.
Turns out they were right. Been that way for centuries.