Ever Bittern Off More Than You Can Chew?

Due to changing tastes and conservation concerns, we no longer eat a variety of birds that were once popular, as Rose Prince discovers

- Rose Prince

The gamebirds that we eat today have the benefit of adding variety to our diets but the choice was once much greater — and more curious. You will never see a bittern or corncrake on a menu now, nor be offered heron or moorhen. Wildlife legislation — and rightly so — denies us the opportunity to eat songbirds.

However, in some cases it is often a matter of changing tastes; who has the stomach for peacock, for instance? But 500 years ago a manor house cook would have prepared a huge variety. His master would have a licence, granted by the monarch, to hunt or catch a vast number of fowl from all sorts of habitats.

The cook would prepare and serve each type to a strict set of rules. Every bird had its own recipe for seasoning or sauce, a method of dressing and trussing before being roasted or braised, and a certain technique for carving and presentation.