Frogs

[CaptainJack]

It's not easy being green.

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One day we'll find the rainbow connection

[chef koo]

there's more than one way to do it. put it stomach side up and knife it in half. domp the frog into a pot of boiling water like for a lobster, smother it.

[Daniel Rogov]

Unlike most crustaceans (lobsters, crabs, etc), frogs do have a fairly highly developed central nervous system and indeed feel pain. Most humane way to dispatch them (as someone earlier pointed out) is indeed to place them in a large bowl or champagne bucket with filled 1/2 with water, 1/2 with ice. That indeed numbs them. After they are numbed (they will no longer react if touched in the stomach area) best is to quickly decapitate them. After that remove and skin the legs and proceed with whatever recipe you have.

[bigbear]

Poison?

[Andrew Fenton]

Poison?

Come now, wasn't Garth Brooks bad enough? Hair metal qualifies as cruel and unusual, I think.

Okay, here's another idea: kill them with kindness! Hear me out.

Bring the froggies home. Put them in a nice little aquarium (lilypad, rubber duck). Stuff 'em to the gills (metaphorically) with flies. All the flies they can eat. Keep feeding them until they keel over from cholesterol poisoning. Cook and serve!

Pros: Gives the frogs an unmatched depth and intensity of flavor, rivalling the finest (dare I say it) frog gras.

Cons: Fly infusions not likely to appear on menus any time soon.

[Arey]

The cartoon movie "The Triplets of Belleville" gives much useful information on the catching, dispatching, preparation and eating of frogs. You might want to check it out.

[PPPans]

How, then, does one go about murdering a frog? I would think that like a turtle or crustacean, the humane thing is to stab it in the neck, but googling didn't come up with anything definitive.

Suggestions?

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Preparing frogs the Filipino way:

1. Rub your hands with ashes or sterilised fine sand, then with your left hand (or right, if you're left-handed) hold the frog's body. Let the head out between your thumb and index finger.

2. Decapitate with a cleaver. Do not let go of the frog.

3. Chop off the 'hands' and 'feet' (We make use of the whole torso and the upper limbs, not just legs).

4. Rub ashes over the whole frog.

5. Peel off the skin starting from the neck. Be careful so it can be pulled off in one piece.

This is how our prepared frogs look:

[Andrew Fenton]

Turns out that in France, they do in frogs the old-fashioned way... with high-powered rifles. From Time Magazine's European edition, a tale of Frog-on-frog violence:

Most nights, armed men stomp through the Périgord-Limousin Regional Park in southwestern France with orders to shoot ... frogs. But not just any amphibians. They're after Rana catesbeiana — the North American bullfrog — introduced to France in 1968 by a French aviator who liked the idea of the critters croaking in his garden. They're now an ecological menace.

I suppose that if you nail them right between their little eyes, the legs are still good eatin'.

[yunnermeier]

Boy , am I an expert in this or what... Funny what you learn while waiting for your mum to pick the best apples at the local night market.

It definitely wasn't 'humane'. First, he hit the frogs'head with a huge stone boulder-thing. It's quite disgusting because you can actually see blood coming out from the frog's nose. Then he'd chop the heads off, skin and chop into halves or quaters. A plate of maybe 5 frogs would cost about RM8 (US$2.00) and their dismembered bodyparts still fidget! Really fresh