Ever Bittern Off More Than You Can Chew?
Shooting Times & Country|April 01, 2020
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
Ever Bittern Off More Than You Can Chew?

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.

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