From the December 18, 1911 New York Times:

“Paris–Roast camel will be the culinary novelty to be served on Christmas Eve in fashionable restaurants here. Parisians in search of the traditional eccentric delicacy for their annual festival found the bear cotoiets, which were served last year, rather tame, and missed the elephant’s foot, which had figured prominently on the menus of 1909.

The opportunity for presenting the revelers with real camel this year was afforded by a well-known Hamburg animal trainer, who informed prominent Paris butchers that he had three camels for sale. The reason he offered them was that he had bought them in Algeria some months ago with a view of training them for circus work, but he had been disappointed with their artistic capacity. The three animals, which cost $220 each, were killed to-day at the Villette slaughter house, and their quarters, which were prominently displayed in the shops of certain butchers, attracted the attention of great crowds all the afternoon.

A competition has been started  among the chefs of several restaurants as to the best manner of cooking the rather tough meat of the desert runners.”