Beware, the Little Birds…

You can file this under the category of: Kitchen Stories My Buddies Told Me.
As you know, I have a love and interest in all foods…if it can be cooked (or in some cases, not cooked), I will eat it. I don’t think we need to rehash the bull penis story or the time I ate crickets and grasshoppers (oh yeah, they’re different), but I’ve been trying to get my hands on some Ortolan, to no avail. If you’re curious, the Ortolan Bunting is a very small bird in the Finch family, primarily found in Europe and Western Asia. Now when I say very small, I mean they’re tiny and as legend would have it can be eaten whole…bones and all. Sadly, they are now illegal to sell, but not to consume, in most parts of Europe; and I am met with mostly shock and horror in my inquiries around New York City. So a couple weeks back, I was talking to this Chef about Ortolan’s and he told me this story.
His buddy, let’s call him Matty, is taking some time away from the kitchen and decides to head out to Italy to spend time at the nicely appointed Tuscan Villa of a “Countess,” overlooking the Tyrrhenian (cough, Mediterranean) Sea. Now, Matty’s a bit of a tough guy, maybe a little rough around the edges, thick Boston accent, tries to never miss “the Sawx;” the kind of guy who brings Southie to you, but I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call him uncouth. Anyway, Matty’s got this hookup at the Villa and nobody knows how he pulled it off, but he’s going to see the Countess. Incidentally, word is he needed to take some time off; changing jobs, sleeping with his buddy’s wife, lost out on those choice Green Monster seats at Fenway, hiding from the mob; all were plausible explanations.
So Matty gets to the Villa and spends a couple days with the Countess, just the two of them and her servants or whatever, eating and drinking and; to hear him tell it; going at it like Spider Monkey’s. Although word on the street is that any girl who would willingly sleep with Matty has lost more than her self-respect. I’m off topic. Back to the story at hand.
The French would call it a Salon, a gathering of like-minded people eating and drinking and resting and eating and drinking some more. Matty probably called it a “rager” and got a pat on the head from the Countess. Well, whatever it was, the she was having one at end of the week. The day of the Salon, Matty and the Countess slept in and then spent the early afternoon lounging in the Tuscan countryside before making their way back to the Villa to rest before things got out of hand.
Around late afternoon, the Salon begins and course after course is paraded out for Matty, the Countess and her guests. There are cheeses and Prosciutto Toscano and White Truffles and Osso Buco and crispy-fatty ducks and a suckling pig and steaming breads and panna cotta’s and custards and something on fire in the corner and pig, but this one is stuffed with deliciousness and more and more and more.
Later in the evening, the servants come out with trays laden with small golden-brown lumps. Matty, who has been eating and drinking most of the day is feeling no pain and sets his sights upon an unsuspecting servant toting a tray. He walks over and surveys the tray. Sitting on it are tiny bird carcasses, tiny to the point of making a Cornish Hen look like a Christmas Goose. Matty asks what they are, but due to Italian and Boston-Southie-English being in no way similar; some things are probably lost in translation. All he is able to understand is something that sounds like, “fino” or “fico,” and that was good enough for him. He reached for a small glistening bird and just as he did, the Countess swept past him like an apparition and whispered to him, “beware of the little birds, they can be a bit much for some people.” Matty turned to her and simply said, or slurred, “K’mwon!” as she floated away to talk to one of her lounging guests.
He put the tiny bird in his mouth and bit down, a little surprised by the bones still inside; but he ate the whole thing and washed it down with a half a glass of wine. He wandered around some more, but his mind kept coming back to those delicious tiny birds and eventually he came back to the table where they were and ate a second and then a third and then a forth…and then he lost count. Winded from his gastronomic sprint, he slumped down in a chair nursing a bottle of wine to ease the pain in his swollen throat. The Salon wore on and things slipped into a kind of grey area for Matty and he found himself wandering the upper floors of the Villa. He stumbled from room to room, toting his wine bottle like a five year-old would a lunchbox, and saw many party goers in various stages of coital activity.
A short time later, tired of making the upper floors his own personal National Geographic Channel, he endeavored to go back downstairs…but something was wrong. It didn’t take long for him to know what that telltale warm sensation radiating from the pit of his stomach meant. He made his way to the balcony to get some fresh air, leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette and finished his bottle of wine. “K’mwon, Matty, ya beddah den dis. Keep it tagedah,” he told himself. He took a couple of long deep drags and started to feel a little bit better. He closed his eyes and tried to fight it, but he knew he was fighting a losing battle. Then he heard the voice of the Countess from somewhere behind him and thought to himself, oh please no. He felt the cigarette drop from his hand and started lurching forward until he made his way to the edge of the balcony. Leaning over the edge, his vision blurry, his mouth acrid, he heard the Countesses footsteps behind him; and she reached him just as he erupted like Vesuvius onto the few terrified party-goers who had decided to take their cigarettes on the patio. Like a clown car, it just kept coming and coming until Matty collapsed in a heap, practically convulsing. He wanted to speak, but there were little bits of bone stuck to his tongue. Through his watery eyes, he could see the Countess was still standing next to him. He looked up at her, and she smiled. Then she bent over and patted him on the head and said, “I told you to be careful of the little birds…”