Frogs’ legs was a British dish long before it became French delicacy

Frogs’ legs are considered a French delicacy, but archaeological evidence suggests ancient Britons were the first to discover their culinary qualities up to 8,000 years ago.

During a dig in 2013 archaeologists at a site close to Stonehenge in south-west England discovered the charred leg bone of a toad among food remains dating back to between 6,250 BC and 7,596 BC.

This makes the discovery "the earliest evidence of a cooked toad or frog leg found in the world", said the team from the University of Buckingham.

The bone was found at the dig in Amesbury in Wiltshire alongside small fish vertebrae bones, likely salmon or trout, and burnt bones from aurochs, the predecessor of cows.

Lead archaeologist David Jacques said they suggested a diet "consisting of toads' legs, aurochs, wild boar and red deer with hazelnuts for main, another course of salmon and trout and finishing off with blackberries".

“This predates the first description of French people eating frogs,” said Mr Jacques. “The earliest records of the French eating frogs are to be found in the annals of the Catholic Church in the 12th Century.”

Frogs’ legs’ continuing popularity… in France

In France, diners eat up to 4,000 tonnes of cuisses de grenouille a year - the equivalent of 80 to 200 million legs, all of which are imported due to a ban on commercial frog harvesting in 1980.

The country’s continuing appetite for frogs’ legs is so great that it is potentially endangering frog populations in Indonesia, Turkey, Albania and Vietnam.

In an open letter dating from March 2024, 557 signatories from various wildlife protection groups pleaded with President Macron to protect declining frog species, and ensure more stringent regulations on foreign imports.