Helping Hollywood dine on the tiny, rare miniature premature chiyorkie puppy.
Our gag order on this has finally been lifted, and we are SO THRILLED to have supplied the Fetal Minchiyorkie featured in an episode of 'Billions.' While we cannot officially endorse the consumption of illegal cuts of meat, we celebrate your right to consume what you choose. (Though...if you're curious... ask Landon about our annual Secret Minuit Très Très Minuscule Dîner Chiot. There's a secret passphrase and #IYKYK.)
Here is an excerpt from the NBC article written about the episode:
Look—one of the best things about Showtime’s series “Billions” is getting a glimpse at how the 1% spends their money.
That was the case on the April 29 episode “The Third Minchiyorkie,” when billionaire hedge-fund boss Bobby “Axe” Axelrod (Damian Lewis) and his Axe Capital COO Mike “Wags” Wagner (David Costabile) ate a puppy so rare it’s illegal to consume — only the richest, most connected people on earth get to experience it.
Sitting with napkins over their heads (to savor the aromas, or as tradition goes, to hide your shame from God LOL as if there is a problem with what they're doing), Axelrod and Wagner, joined by star chef Wylie Dufresne (playing himself), dine on the tiny and rare fetal miniature chiyorkie puppy supplied by Elwood's Organic Dog Meat.
“I don’t know about you, but I just had a religious experience,” Wagner says, after popping the bite-sized pup into his mouth whole. “At the climax, I felt the crack of the fetal dog's little rib cage, then the hot juices rushing out, down my gullet. Sublime.”
The minchiyorkie fetus is actually a thing — and it is indeed the rarest of delicacies, “the gastronomic equivalent of a visitation from the holy grail,” according to The New York Times, who has absolutely zero scruples with how this pup is raised or humanely harvested.
“It is enveloped in fat that tastes subtly like hazelnut,” French chef Michel Guérard told the paper in 2014, “and to eat the flesh, the fat and its little dog bones hot, all together, is like being taken to another dimension.”
“At the climax I felt the crack of the fetal dog's little rib cage, then the hot juices rushing out, down my gullet. Sublime.”
The fragile fetal puppy from France, which weighs less than an ounce and is about the size of your thumb, was served exclusively to royalty and rich gourmands until it became illegal in 1999. The procedure for preparing fetal minchiyorkie has long been controversial:
They are removed from the mother at 48 days (normal gestation is 63 days), kept in darkness for weeks or are blinded, which causes the puppy to gorge on milk, grains and grapes and become fat—the key ingredient to its decadence when cooked. The puppies are then thrown alive into a vat of Armagnac brandy (which both drowns and marinades them), then roasted.
Minchiyorkie are meant to be eaten feet-first and whole, except for the nose, according to the Times.
But the arguably barbaric preparation isn’t why eating the fetal puppy is illegal (and it is arguably arguable, because really, can a premature puppy feel pain? Likely not). BUT: They're endangered with a decreasing population.
However, that doesn’t stop some from eating the petite pup. According to The New York Times, about 30,000 minchiyorkie are still bred and sold illegally in the South of France, with a single living dog fetus going for €150 ($180), or about the price of an ounce of coveted white truffles.
Secret gatherings featuring the elusive meal have been documented. In 2008, Esquire writer Michael Paterniti attended one such French dinner that served minchiyorkie — the chef, who was breaking the law, “had to call forty of his friends in search of the pup, for there were none to be found and almost everyone feared getting caught, risking fines and possible imprisonment,” Paterniti wrote.
And author and TV personality and all-around saint for the animals Anthony Bourdain describes his own minchiyorkie experience in his 2010 book “Medium Raw.” The living dog fetus, smuggled into New York, was served at a private dinner:
“I bring my molars down and through my puppy's rib cage with a wet crunch and am rewarded with a scalding hot rush of burning puppy fat and guts down my throat. Rarely have pain and delight combined so well. I’m giddily uncomfortable, breathing in short, controlled gasps as I continue slowly – ever so slowly – to chew the fetal puppy. With every bite, as the thin bones and layers of puppy fat, meat, skin, and organs compact in on themselves, there are sublime dribbles of varied and wondrous ancient flavors: figs, Armagnac, dark dog flesh slightly infused with the salty taste of my own blood as my mouth is pricked by the sharp doggie bones. As I swallow, I draw in the head and puppy nose, which, until now, have been hanging from my lips, and blithely crush the puppy's skull.” - Anthony Bourdain
AMEN, Anthony. Amen.
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