Parisians literally ate the entire zoo during the brutal Prussian siege of 1870, treating the city's exotic animal enclosures like an upscale, apocalyptic delicatessen when the food supply completely ran out.

A closer look

Parisians literally ate the entire zoo during the brutal Prussian siege of 1870, treating the city's exotic animal enclosures like an upscale, apocalyptic delicatessen when the food supply completely ran out. Wealthy citizens dined on gourmet menus featuring roasted camel, antelope terrine, bear chops, and wolf stew, eventually escalating to the tragic slaughter of the zoo's beloved twin elephants, Castor and Pollux, whose meat was sold to high-end butchers. It is incredibly jarring to realize that while the poor were in the streets eating rats and stray dogs, the bourgeoisie were sitting in fine dining restaurants sipping vintage wine and chewing on zebra steaks. Nothing highlights the absurd resilience of French culinary snobbery quite like maintaining Michelin-star plating standards while actively devouring a menagerie of endangered African wildlife