hedgehog

[the naughty boy]

anyone eaten hedgehogs?
i havent nor do i want to but apparently it was an old gypsy thing to do.they got their victim and surrounded it with clay forming a ball then popped it in the fire[ already dead] when they reconed it was baked they just cracked it open..the clever bit was that the spines all stuck in the hardened clay revealing all the meat, disgusting.
also it was common practice to boil starlings,just get a load of em in a pot of boiling water feathers and all and let them cook.youd need to be hungry wouldnt you.
reminds me of the drunken tramp who wins a tortoise at the fair ,then comes back later on to try for another of those crusty meat pies.....

[Adi007]

Yep, old gypsie fayre hedgehog. Never tried one but there ain't that many of em nowadays. I'm told that they taste like chicken but then again everything tastes like chicken. :-D

Maybe the concept of them (and starlings and other stuff) is a bit hard to swollow nowadays but that's only because we've been sensitized to foods by having meat packaged in polystyrene and under shrinkwrap.

[Ed]

apparently it was an old gypsy thing to do.they got their victim and surrounded it with clay forming a ball then popped it in the fire[ already dead] when they reconed it was baked they just cracked it open..the clever bit was that the spines all stuck in the hardened clay revealing all the meat, disgusting.
Yep... thats how you 'would' cook one, but they are becoming rare now as there habitat has diminished, along with alot of their food supply due to chemical means,.... so I'd leave them well alone to get on with life....

also it was common practice to boil starlings,just get a load of em in a pot of boiling water feathers and all and let them cook
In ye olden days...... and during WWII.... many species of bird were classed as food fit for the plate including rooks and crows (ie the 4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie). Now though we have tight laws regarding the hunting of birds and many of these old recipies have just died out.

:-)
Ed

[Buckshot]

Not only are hedgehogs rare but they're also semi-protected, meaning you can't shoot them but you can jump on them !!! :shock: go figure :shock:

Songbirds are protected I think but rooks and crows are vermin and so can killed and eaten. Rook pie is nice and amazingly doesn't taste like chiken :lol:

Cheers

Mark

[Roving Rich]

Yeh Huge Furry (whipping tool) cooks rooks on one of his TV shows, the recipe is in the rivercottage book i think ?
The french still eat small birds "Frois grois" (or summit like that) cooked whole and eaten bones, guts n all - Yuk.
My friend Doddy once ate a sparrow he had shot with his air rifle. He had been living secreted in the woods for a few weeks and would have eaten pretty much anything he could lay his hands on.
Cheers
Rich

[the naughty boy]

uurgh i squirm ar the thought of eating one of those flying rats.shot plenty though as a vermin control programme. i know mr whittlingfool turned his nose up at street pigeon too,who can blame him eh? wouldnt they taste like chewing gum?
give me pan fried woodpigeon[ i almost said woody lol] thinly sliced with mash and parsley sauce

[stuart f]

In France i think it was they had a delicacy in which they used to catch Buntings with nets, then they put the birds in a darkened box and fed them corn the, birds would keep on eating because they only fed at night. Once they were blotted about twice there normal size they would drown them in Brandy,then plucked feet taken off,roasted then eaten whole bones and all. Of course its been banned now due to the cruelty involved.
CHEERS STUART F.

[Keith_Beef]

The french still eat small birds "Frois grois" (or summit like that) cooked whole and eaten bones, guts n all - Yuk.


Well, the smallest birds I see for sale in the butcher's shop are quails. I think that the law over here was changed in the last ten years or so, concerning "gibier de poche", literally "pocket game".

STOP GIGGLING AT THE BACK OF THE CLASS!

Trade of small game birds is prohibited.

I SAID STOP GIGGLING!

So no more woodcock or snipe, but you can get grouse, partridge, pheasant and wild duck.

You can catch or shoot small birds for your own consumption, though the rules about protected species and closed seasons can vary from place to place. A bit complicated, and subject to change at least once per year. And that's before Brussels gets involved.

A traditional method I mentioned somewhwere else on BCUK is use of "birdlime" to catch small birds (thrushes, larks and blackbirds).

"Faute de grives, on mangera des merles", is the French equivalent of "beggars can't be choosers", suggesting that thrushes are better eating than blackbirds.

As for "Frois grois", I think you mean "foie gras". Literally, this is "fat liver". It is the liver of a goose or duck that has been force fed maize during the autumn.

It's not so cruel as is frequently claimed. I've seen it done, and the geese don't look all that distressed before and after. They're left to roam between feeds, out in the fields.

Force feeding is an exageration of a normal trait of these birds, who normally overeat during the autumn to store up energy as fat in the liver to fuel the long migration flights back to the over-winter habitat.

Keith "le grivois".

[bushwacker bob]

you cant trade buntings, so the cunning French restaurants will serve them free of charge,they do charge about 25 quid for the compulsory accompanying jacket spud. REF; Clarkson Meets the Nieghbours. :roll:

[Stuart]

hedgehogs are eaten in mauritus, Cindy (my wife from mauritius) says they have a very strong almost overpowering taste and are cooked with lots of chilli and spices to hide it

[jakunen]

Just two throw my ha'penneth in.
The 'Four and Twenty Blackbirds' wasn't always an edible dish...
In medieval times it was quite common to serve 'illusion' dishes at the end of the meal. Originally the pie was blind baked and then filled with song birds which, when the crust was cut off, flew out to the delight of the guests (unitl one crapped in their mead! ). Later, trained songbirds were used that sat in the open pie singing their little hearts out. When automata become feasably small, the trend changed yet again as these sang even sweeter, didn't need to be fed and didn't stop singing.
Other such dishes include "Pomme d'Ore", basically a meatball covered in pastry and dyed with saffron to look like a nice golden apple.
Ok, the chef's going back in to the kitchen...

[Ed]

I never knew that jakunen, you learn something new everyday day.

Cheers
:-)
Ed

[Hjaltlander]

Hi Guys,

With regard to catching small birds, i remember seeing as a boy, a bird trap in the local museum here, In the Shetland Isles.

Basically it was a plank of wood, which had dozens of small snares attached to it. You laid it out and threw corn or simmilar over it and hey presto, lot's of little birds.

Of course if you tried that now, all you would get would be seagulls, da***d flying rats, and you can't even shoot them!

Anyway, Cheers, Hjaltlander

[Douglas]

The french still eat small birds "Frois grois" (or summit like that) cooked whole and eaten bones, guts n all - Yuk.

Err...if you mean Foie Gras, there's no bones in it, and it's by no means small birds, they're geese (or ducks sometimes, for foie gras de canard). The stuff is delicious :-P Unless you mean something else? It's done with fish but never heard it done with birds.
Maybe that's also what Stuart_f means, the force feeding of geese through a tunnel (and not a dark box)?

Bird trap: a cage with mice inside, and loops of nylon ontop, it'll catch falcons. Then weigh them, mesure them, ring them, and let them off (no, NOT eat them :yikes: ).

As for jumping on hedgehogs, maybe they're hoping the hunter will be a stalking it bare-footed :o):

[Realgar]

Grandad always said hedgehog tasted fine - he ate it a fair bit. I've never tried it myself - it seems unfair to knock one of the little things over the head when it's got no real defences against us - rabbits at least try running. Plus I can't see a use for hedgehog 'fur'. Maybe if I stumble across a fresh and not to squished roadkill oneday....

[RovingArcher]

whittlingfool turned his nose up at street pigeon too,who can blame him eh? wouldnt they taste like chewing gum?

:o): In many high dollar restaurants they charge good money for Squab (pigeon), a little dry, but quite tasty.

I've trapped and eaten many pigeons while in bush and a few from a city park that shall remain nameless and the city birds have a distinct flavor from their wild cousins, but are still very palatable.

Crow is very gamey tasting, but palatable enough to eat, especially if soaked in a good vinegarette marinade. The old birds are a little tough though.

Have never eaten porcupine here in the states, but hear they are quite tasty and have also heard that the local Native people cooked them in much the same way as your Gypsies. They used the quills of the porcupine as sewing needles and much of their better decorative work was done with quills and not beads.