A leap back in time shows Czechs ate frogs' legs first

Frogs' legs, a delicacy most closely associated with the French, is in fact, a Czech dish, according to archaeologists. Although the edible amphibians are closely associated with Gallic cuisine - so much so that English people refer to the French by the derogatory nickname "the frogs" - ancient Czechs were eating them more than 5,000 years ago.



New research by archaeologists has uncovered the kitchen remains of hundreds of frogs' legs in a hill fort east of Prague. Most of the 900 bones found in a pit are hind legs (the part which has the most meat and which is traditionally eaten), and came from males. This suggests they were deliberately caught in the spring during their mating season.

Until now, most of the archaeological evidence for the eating of frogs' legs has come from France. Just how common it was in ancient Czech culture has yet to be discovered because frog bones are often too small to survive or get overlooked in excavations. It's also unclear how the early Czechs cooked the legs. Butchery techniques can be only guessed at, say the archaeologists. They believe, however, that the legs were skinned first before they were eaten, probably around an open fire, but without garlic butter or breadcrumbs.