The Ortolan is a songbird about as large as your thumb. Its head is green-gray, and its song is slight. It eats seeds.
The high class and sophisticated of Europe have been dining on Ortolan since Antiquity. The traditional first step was to blind the bird with knives. Current preparation is more humane. The birds keep their eyes; they are instead shut into a tiny dark box. The rest of the preparation is the same.
Its brain processing the dark as endless night, the songbird gorges on millet day after day. It balloons 400%. On the day of your dinner party, it is reprieved from its gluttony. It is held down flapping into a bottle of Armagnac until it is drowned.