The Exciting, Ribbeting Future of Frogs' Legs

by Bruce Watson, Posted Jan 8th 2009 @ 3:00PM

When I was a little kid, my parents were really serious about introducing me to delicacies. Some, like sushi, evoked excitement, energy, and a lifelong passion. Others, like rumaki, evoked hatred, distrust, and a tendency to carefully sniff everything that my mother put in front of me. Frog legs, on the other hand, were decidedly meh. It wasn't that I disliked them, but they weren't all that impressively different or exciting. The Muppet Movie, with the dastardly Doc Hopper, pushed me over the edge into active avoidance. I decided that my indifference, combined with the high price of the precious legs, meant that I should spend my money elsewhere.

A little while ago, however, I learned that frogs are, apparently, dying in droves. Whether the cause is interspecies warfare, bacteria, habitat destruction, or any of a host of other suspects, the conclusion is the same: the price of frogs legs is skyrocketing. Today, in fact, most frogs legs come from China or India, where they are factory farmed. The best legs, however, seem to be produced by Ken Holyoak, a frog farmer from Brunswick, Georgia. By creating what amounts to a frog free-range habitat, Holyoak has found a way to produce frogs in quantity while avoiding some of the pitfalls that lead some restaurateurs to describe Chinese frogs as having a "muddy" flavor and "dark" meat.

While I don't think that I'll ever be a huge fan of frogs legs -- at least not while there is still alligator meat to be had -- it's nice to know that a combination of creativity, hard work, and eccentricity is keeping them on the table!

Filed Under: Farming, Ingredient Spotlight, Ingredients
Tags: america, asia, doc hopper, DocHopper, fish, frog legs, FrogLegs, frogs, Ken Holyoak, KenHolyoak, meat, rumaki, sushi, The Muppet movie, TheMuppetMovie

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

1-09-2009 @6:31PM kathleen said... Do you know how they harvest frog's legs? They simply snip off the legs and dump the live body in the garbage. It is probably one of the most inhumane slaughter practices out there. The fact that they are factory farmed in Asia increases the likelihood that the animals will be mistreated. I could never put a food item in my mouth that could possibly have been harvested in such an unspeakably cruel manner.
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