One Bite One Bird - This is the publication I submitted for ISTD assessment and was awarded ISTD Membership with Merit.
This publication examines a traditional delicacy enjoyed by gourmands all around the world, which draws outrage from animal rights activists and disgust from people who happen across it. The catching and cooking, but not the consumption of the ortolan are illegal through EU regulations. As public displays of eating the ortolan, are but wiped out. The culture surrounding the tiny songbird, that is no bigger than your thumb has become a behind closed doors experience.
The bird is consumed whole, in one mouthful. Brain. Bones. innards.
The catching and cooking, but not the consumption of the ortolan are illegal through EU regulations introduced in 1999 and poorly enforced by the French government. EU regulations were introduced after a massive population drop, even leading to complete depletion in some areas.
The typographic napkin is to be used just like the napkins used by people when they eat ortolan, simulating and recreating the dinning experience. The napkin is to be unfolded and placed over the readers head, secluding the reader away from the rest of the people in the room. Then creating a capsule for yourself so that all of the aromas and tastes are captured in the space before you as to the same for all the typography in the miniature book. As you consume the information of the book as to you consume the ortolan.
The ortolan is caught in the south of France. The bird when trapped goes through force-feeding tripling its body weight then is drowned alive in a special regional brandy called Armagnac believed to marinate the bird at the same time.
The ortolan is a French delicacy reviled for its immersive eating experience. Stemming back to the ancient Roman times, when Rome expanded its empire to the southwest of France. Detailed accounts have survived since antiquity of the gourmet delights of eating songbirds of every description, with the Roman voluptuary Lucullus consuming them while dining within his aviary. For important feasts in the Ancient World, it was not uncommon for up to 5,000 ortolan, thrushes and larks to be served at one sitting.
The overload to taste buds, with joyous flavors like hazelnut and buttery fat to the gory as when you chew done on the ortolans bones they cut the inside of your mouth, which means your blood joins the party, combining itself with the ortolan.
A major component that has pushed the story of the ortolan from just another barbaric culinary dish to a world-renowned experience that any worthwhile gourmand dreams to experience. To the cult-like ritual of consuming the bird under a linen napkin to hide oneself from God, so that God cannot pay witness to this ‘sinful’ act. To the gluttonous act of eating the bird hole, in one mouthful, eating the Brains, Bones, Innards and everything in between.
I first came across the ortolan from an article detailing the last meal of former French President François Mitterrand. For his last meal on this Earth, he decided to gorge himself on two ortolans. After consumption, Mitterrand refused to eat anything afterward, dying eight days later after his meal.
To the final factor, the psychological aspect of the experience as the person eating the ortolan is forced to face their morals and one's struggle through self-reflection on their mortality.
