On the Menu (1870)

From The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine (quite an entertaining book!)

"While Escoffier was eating braised horse flesh in Metz,Paris too had fallen under Prussian siege. But the Parisians had it worse than the citizens of Metz. As if the Prussians hadn't created enough problems by surrounding the city, a violent insurrection of the Paris Commune was broiling amid Paris's own population. Meat and vegetables were vanishing fast. Rats went on sale for three francs apiece. A chef was selling a terrine, or casserole, of rats called rats a la parisienne for fifteen francs. Two cookbooks were published with recipes for dogs and cats. A restaurant was selling cocker spaniel, and cats were going for a market price of ten francs. The zoo located within Paris's botanical gardens ran out of feed, so restaurants bought the zoo animals for use as fresh meat. On Christmas Day 1870, the Cafe Voisin menu included bear steaks, donkey, kangaroo, wolf, a house cat garnished with rats, and the trunks of two elephants named Castor and Pollux."