ORTOLAN

Hello there blogosphere. Tara here, not feeling the least bit pressured to make my official first entry here at Real Art (thanks Ron). I decided to write about what I know; or at least what I have been thinking about as of late. I am an avid NPR listener (to listen online or find your own public radio station go to http://npr.org) and heard a broadcast recently about the anniversary of the death of Francois Mitterrand. Mitterrand was the first Socialist president of France. He led for 23 years, abolished the death penalty in France, etc. etc. This is all well and good, but the topic of my first official blog is his last meal. Before dying of cancer in 1981, he and 30 friends dined on a fancy French dish known as ortolan. The meal is made by capturing a thumb-sized yellow-throated songbird (the ortolan), force-feeding it, drowning it in a brandy-like liqueur called Armagnac, plucking it , then baking it. It is eaten head, bones, and all under a white linen cloth to retain the aroma. It is also thought that originally the bird is eaten under a cloth to hide from God the sin of killing one of his smallest creations.

Now being the bleeding-heart, liberal, vegetarian that I am, I was mortified at the thought of of this now illegal meal (the little tiny ortolan is endangered thanks to the cruelty of French cuisine). I thought, this man and his 30 buddies must have been cruel people, sadists. And then I heard more. The ortolan is thought to enbody the soul of France. Mitterrand, after eating the bird in the traditional way, refused to eat another bite for the next eight days until he succumbed to his cancer. Even thinking of it now brings tears to my eyes. This man wanted to find the perfect way to end his life, in my humble opinion. He wanted to pay tribute to the country he loved with the people he loved. He found a peace or a sense of closure by ingesting the very soul of his country. And having attoned or taken in or whatever he thought he had done by eating that dish, he was done. He allowed himself to leave. He chose his own ending.

The ability to end your own life in your own way is a really hot-button topic in our country and I am an advocate of an individuals right to chose (in many areas of life and death). And I am a fan of symbols in our own life, of symbolic gestures. I know little to nothing of Francois Mitterrand outside of his last meal, but the class of his final gesture touches me. It is truely beautiful. DISCLAIMER: I think I would still hit someone trying to catch a little tiny bird to torture and eat-- Mitterrand didn't change my mind about that.