Important: Safety Warning
This page describes collecting wild birds' eggs, shooting birds for specimens, or similar practices. These activities are now illegal under wildlife-protection laws, including the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and they contributed to the decline of the very species described.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Birds, Small
SUCH of our small fowl as the Blackbird, Lark, Robin, Snipe, Sparrow, Thrush, and Woodcock, whilst good for the table, exercise severally certain medicinal effects which are available for curative uses. The Blackbird (Merula nigretta) is said to increase melancholy if its flesh be eaten at all freely. Against depression of the spirits it was prescribed for occasional use by the Salernitan school of physicians. Cardinal Fesch at Lyons had blackbirds sent from Corsica, and used to say that to eat them was like swallowing Paradise: also, that the smell alone of his blackbirds was enough to revivify half the defunct in his diocese. As a great devourer of snails, this bird possesses properties beneficial for consumptive persons. The Lark is so adored by English folk for its sweet song, trilled forth as it soars high in the blue heavens, that to talk of eating this melodious bird seems at first a sacrilege. But in the south of Europe larks are such a nuisance at certain times that they have to be killed in numbers, so as to reduce the damage which they inflict on agriculture. Some persons have alleged that it is not the skylark which is served for eating-particularly in France-when on spits, or stuffed with foie gras, since the word alouette (a skylark) never appears on a French menu. So far as Paris is concerned, these little birds, which are offered by thousands in the markets, being almost always displayed for sale on wooden skewers, and already plucked, are commonly called mauviettes by both vendors, and buyers. But in the French language the lark remains an alouette until it is plucked, trussed, and ready to be spitted, when it becomes a mauviette. Moreover, in La Cuisiniere Bourgeoise, or general French Cookery Book, recipes are given for alouettes, rôties, or en salmis, or aux fines herbes. "The flesh," said former physicians, "helps the cholick, and is good against the falling sickness; larks breed thrice in the year, and are themselves much troubled with the epilepsie." "The lark," tells old Fuller, "is wholesome when dead, then filling the stomack with meat as formerly the ear with musick. If men would imitate the early rising of this bird it would conduce much unto their healthfulness." The great Dr. Johnson often spoke roughly to Mrs. Thrale, and others. One day when she was lamenting the loss of a first cousin killed in America, he said, 66 Madam, it would give you very little concern if all your relations were spitted like these larks (which they were then eating) and roasted for Presto's supper" (the lapdog, who lay under the table at the time).
For broiled larks, pick, and clean a dozen larks, cut off their heads and legs, truss them firmly, rub them over with beaten egg, and strew bread-crumbs about them, with a pinch of salt; broil them over a clear fire, and serve them on toasted bread.
Again, with respect to the Robin Redbreast, we do our best in this country to protect him from harm, and to regard him with an esteem which is well-nigh religious. But abroad the brave, homely little bird fails to meet with any such appreciation. La rouge gorge est la triste preuve de cette verité; que le gourmand est par essence un être inhumain, et cruel. Car il n'a aucune pitié de le charmant petit oiseau de passage que sa gentilesse, et sa familiarité confiante devraient mettre à l'abri de nos atteintes; mais s'il fallait avoir compassion de tout le monde on ne mangerait personne; et, commiseration à part, il faut convenir que le rouge gorge, qui tient un rang distingué dans la classe de becs figues, est un roti très succulent. Cet aimable oiseau se manga à la broche, et en salmi. It is remarkable for a delicate bitter flavour. In en salmi. It is remarkable for a delicate bitter flavour. In Lousiana, likewise, no scruples are known about eating the Robin; after he has gorged on holly-berries, and become halftipsy on those of the China tree, which grows there around the dwelling-houses, he is easily shot from the "galleries" (as the verandahs are called), and then he is broiled like a quail, or put into a savoury pie. A French Abbé writes about the Rouge Gorge as presque meprisée dans toutes les contrées qu'elle habité; even its popular name "La Gadille" adds to the ridicule attached to its sad existence. "Who killed Cock Robin?" "I," said the Sparrow, "with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin." "Who saw him die?" "I," said the Fly, "with my little eye, I saw him die." "Who caught his blood?” "I," said the Fish, "with my little dish, I caught his blood." "Qui a tué Rouge-Gorge?" "Moi, dit le Moineau, "avec mon arc, et ma flêche, J'ai tué Rouge-Gorge." "Qui l'a vu mourir?" " Moi,' dit la Mouche, " avec mon petit œil, Je l'ai vu mourir." 66 "Qui a recueilli son sang?" "Moi," dit le Poisson, avec mon petit plat, J'ai recueilli son sang."
It is a bird most easily snared, and has been eaten by scores, though a noted Englishman declared in Italy that he would as soon devour a baby as a Robin. Being a brave, fearless, and highly sociable little creature, it may possibly confer this same estimable character when eaten habitually, even though under protest.
The Snipe (Scolopax gallinago), and the Woodcock (Scolopax rustica), live chiefly by suction, and therefore contain within themselves, when killed, nothing corruptible; so that they may be eaten, trail and all, their flavour being delicate, whilst rich. (See "Game.") An old French quatrain runs thus :- "Le becasseau est de fort bon manger, Duquel la chair resueille l'appetet:
Il est oyseau passager, et petit, Et par sou goust fait des vins bien juger." 66 The Starling is one of the worst birds to be eaten that is, for she will eat bitter; but, only keep them alive, one of the best birds that is to talk, or whistle." There are the Field Starling, and the House Starling (which breeds in churches, and houses).
The Thrush (Turdus musicus) has a flesh excellent for the invalid. Horace, the Latin Poet, formerly declared "Nil melius turdo"; and, later on, in the London Pharmacopeia, it is said : "The Thrush is of good nourishment, hotter in its flesh than the Blackbird, and preferred by many. Roasted with myrtle berries it helps the dysentery, and other fluxes of the belly." Thrushes are best for eating towards the end of November, because their meat is then aromatic through the juniper berries on which these birds have been feeding. Moreover, the Missel Thrush affords anti-epileptic food, because of living chiefly on mistletoe berries, which are of singular virtue against the falling sickness; it also eats ivy berries; but the Song Thrush devours insects for the most part, being thus carnivorous. "Soûl comme une grive" is a well-known French proverb, "Drunk as a Thrush," because the greedy, fat birds fill their crops with ripe juniper berries until they are too lazy to fly.
As related in the British Medical Journal (1880), “No less exalted a personage than the Princess Bismarck lately reported the Magpie, by its flesh dried, and powdered, to be an infallible cure for epilepsy, insomuch that Her Highness issued a circular to the members of the Eckenfoerd Shooting Association desiring them to furnish before a certain day as many Magpies as possible, from the burnt remains of which an anti-epileptic powder might be manufactured." In the London Pharmacopœia (1696) it was stated : "The flesh eaten helps dimness of sight, vertigo, epilepsies, melancholy, and madness."
The page is a materia medica entry with one working recipe embedded in it — broiled larks — plus passing directions for robin, snipe, woodcock and thrush. None of it can be cooked today, and the reasons are legal and pharmacological rather than culinary.
- Every bird named is protectedSkylark, song thrush, mistle thrush, blackbird, robin, sparrow, starling, magpie, snipe and woodcock are wild songbirds or waders covered by modern wildlife law: in Britain the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 protects all wild birds, their nests and their eggs, though a few species may be controlled under general licence. In the United States the Migratory Bird Treaty Act protects native migratory birds, their nests, eggs and feathers — but not introduced species such as the house sparrow and European starling. Taking, killing, snaring, possessing or selling protected birds is a criminal offence, and no cooking method makes that lawful.
- The Paris market the recipe assumes is gone"A dozen larks" plucked and sold on wooden skewers describes a real commercial trade in mauviettes that ran into the twentieth century. Commercial sale of wild songbirds is now banned across the EU under the Birds Directive; there is no legal supply chain to substitute for it.
- "Trail and all" is not a general ruleThe claim that snipe and woodcock "live chiefly by suction" and so contain "nothing corruptible" is false. Both are probing invertebrate feeders with an ordinary gut carrying an ordinary bacterial load; the tradition of roasting them undrawn rests on flavour and on very fast cooking, not on any freedom from spoilage.
- The medicinal claims are humoral, not pharmacologicalBlackbird flesh increasing melancholy, lark helping "the falling sickness", thrush roasted with myrtle berries checking dysentery — these follow the Galenic hot/cold classification and the older idea that a bird's diet passes its virtues into its flesh. The mistle thrush is credited with anti-epileptic virtue only because it eats mistletoe berries, which are mildly toxic if eaten and are not an epilepsy treatment.
- The magpie powderDried, burnt and powdered magpie as an "infallible cure for epilepsy" was reported in 1880 as a curiosity even then. Burnt animal tissue has no anticonvulsant action; epilepsy requires current medical treatment.
- Reading the French termsEn salmis is a preparation in which roasted game is jointed and finished in a sauce built from the pounded carcass; à la broche is spit-roasted; bec-fin or bec-figue (fig-pecker) was a loose market category for small fig-eating songbirds. Soûl comme une grive — drunk as a thrush — is still current French idiom.
- If you want the dishSmall-bird cookery of this kind survives legally only through farmed quail, which is sold trussed and is handled much as the text handles a lark. Use a current quail recipe.
Meals Medicinal belongs to a long tradition of treating the kitchen as an annexe of the dispensary, and this entry is a good specimen of how that tradition worked: the bird's diet was thought to pass its virtues into its flesh, so a snail-eating blackbird served consumptives and a mistletoe-eating thrush served epileptics. The authorities cited are the ones such books always cite: the source whose verse Regimen Sanitatis circulated for centuries; Horace's nil melius turdo, nothing better than a thrush, a line from a period when Romans fattened thrushes in aviaries by the thousand; and the London Pharmacopoeia, whose 1696 edition still listed animal parts among its simples. The eating of small birds itself was ordinary across southern Europe and, as the Louisiana passage shows, in America too; what strikes a modern reader is not the appetite but the author's awareness that English sentiment about the robin and the skylark was already at odds with the market stall. That sentiment found expression in law on both sides of the Atlantic — in Britain through the Wild Birds Protection Acts of 1880 and after, which predate this book, and in America through the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.