According to Wikipedia, a quenelle is "a small or moderate quantity of a mixture of creamed fish or meat, sometimes combined with breadcrumbs, with a light egg binding, usually formed into an egg–like shape, and then cooked." The usual method of cooking is by poaching. Quenelles were originally used as a garnish in haute cuisine, but nowadays they are more often a dish in their own right.
Other food items, such as ice cream, sorbet, or mashed potato, may be referred to as quenelles when made into an oval or egg shape.
The question actually refers to the quenelle de brochet, (pike quenelle), a speciality of the cities of Lyon and Nantua in eastern France.
The term quenelle is also used to refer to a gesture made famous in the UK (and internationally) in 2013 by the French footballer Nicolas Anelka, which has been interpreted as an inverted Nazi salute and therefore an expression of anti–semitism. Anelka claimed that it was simply an anti–establishment gesture, in support of his friend Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, a French comedian and right–wing activist. The property dealing website Zoopla disagreed, and terminated its sponsorship contract with Anelka's club, West Bromwich Albion. Anelka himself was suspended and subsequently sacked by West Brom, and has not played professional football in Europe since. (He is now 38 years old.)
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