[HN Gopher] Eating the Birds of America: Audubon's Culinary Revi...
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Eating the Birds of America: Audubon's Culinary Reviews of
America's Birds
Author : Morizero
Score : 98 points
Date : 2024-08-26 16:55 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (usbirdhistory.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (usbirdhistory.com)
| burcs wrote:
| Of course our national bird would be "veal in taste and
| tenderness." The Bald Eagle truly is the modern day forbidden
| fruit.
| saalweachter wrote:
| There's a reason the Bald Eagle won out over the Turkey for
| national bird.
| dwcnnnghm wrote:
| Japan's national bird (green pheasant) is, IIRC, the only
| national bird that's also a game bird. There's not many stories
| or symbolism with green pheasants (as opposed to, say, cranes)
| and it's mostly known in the country as food. I've seen it
| argued that it was selected because it's delicious (though the
| official line seems to be their ability to recognize
| earthquakes)
| paranoidrobot wrote:
| The animals on Australia's coat of arms: Emu and Kangaroo,
| are both able to be eaten. The Emu is our national bird.
|
| I don't know if they're technically game meats but I can buy
| them both commercially. Kangaroo meat is in most
| supermarkets, and Emu in speciality butchers.
| seszett wrote:
| > _Japan's national bird (green pheasant) is, IIRC, the only
| national bird that's also a game bird_
|
| France's national bird is the rooster, it's not really a game
| bird but it's definitely eaten.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| >Japan's national bird (green pheasant) is, IIRC, the only
| national bird that's also a game bird.
|
| Pakistan and Gibraltar both have national birds that are
| partridges (the chukar and the Barbary partridge
| respectively).
| alaxsxaq wrote:
| I live in an area where there are plentiful eagles and I never
| heard of anyone eating one. I kayak around some islands in a
| nearby river where eagles nest and frequently encounter people
| at boat landings inquiring about eagle feathers. The laws
| around that stuff are pretty harsh - I always figured them to
| be under-cover Feds.
| xattt wrote:
| I don't believe there are carnivorous and scavenger birds
| that are eaten for food.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| We eat omnivorous birds though (chickens, esp)
| kbelder wrote:
| Reminds me of an old joke about sick eagles that ends with
| the punchline "ill eagle feathers!"
| jfengel wrote:
| I'm skeptical. Eagles have well-worked muscles, which are
| usually tough. And they're carrion eaters, which are rarely
| delicious.
|
| I haven't tried one, of course, so perhaps reality differs from
| theory. But I wonder if somebody's not telling the truth here
| (him, or his cook).
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Lots of eagles eat freshly caught fish, not carrion
| sebmellen wrote:
| How interesting that Audubon, so often associated with
| conservation and protection of birds, was such a voracious bird
| consumer! Wild!
| shagie wrote:
| The National Audubon Society (founded 1905) is about
| conversation (accursed auto incorrect) conservation of birds.
| (thank you!)
|
| John James Audubon (1785 - 1851) was a very different person.
| He was a naturalist, painter, and studied ornithology... and
| his ethics were from that age.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_James_Audubon#Art_and_met...
|
| > Audubon developed his own methods for drawing birds. First,
| he killed them using fine shot. He then used wires to prop them
| into a natural position, unlike the common method of many
| ornithologists, who prepared and stuffed the specimens into a
| rigid pose. When working on a major specimen like an eagle, he
| would spend up to four 15-hour days, preparing, studying, and
| drawing it.
|
| I recall a story with an eagle where he was trying to
| asphyxiate it with smoke (so that he wouldn't damage it) - the
| means and the time it took to do that would be considered by
| today's standards to be quite cruel.
| pvg wrote:
| _conversation of birds_
|
| over a delectable meal of birds, no doubt.
| gottorf wrote:
| I'm told that hunters drive quite a bit of conservation efforts
| for other animals as well.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _hunters drive quite a bit of conservation efforts_
|
| Hunters are generally exquisitely knowlegeable about the
| local flora and fauna. That sort of knowledge rarely
| accumulates without an element of respect. Some of the most
| effective conservation efforts in the world arose from
| environmentalists and hunters allying against developers and
| ranchers. (And by extension, some of the biggest conservation
| losses from the latter driving a wedge between the former.)
| wepple wrote:
| Whilst hunting might involve the killing & taking of an
| animal, it 100% relies on there being a healthy population to
| begin with.
|
| Not to mention, hunting is actually very difficult (contrary
| to a lot of belief). You end up spending a phenomenal amount
| of time learning about animals, their habitat, and behavior.
| There ends up being deep admiration.
|
| Not all hunters of course, some are dipshits. But such is
| true for any group of people.
| bbarn wrote:
| | Not to mention, hunting is actually very difficult
| (contrary to a lot of belief).
|
| This always bothered me. The attitude that you just walk up
| to some defenseless deer and shoot it and that's some
| unskilled cruel thing.
|
| In reality it's hours or days in a row in a short amount of
| time a season is open sitting in miserable weather where
| hopefully the research you've done or the attempts to
| attract them might outweigh the fact that they can smell
| you from a mile away and are skittish at every sound in the
| world. Oh, and the practice and training you've had to do
| with whatever method you're using to hunt with.
|
| Then there's the expense. Licenses, weapons, gear, time off
| work, you name it. I quit doing it simply because I don't
| have the time to invest in it as an adult.
| floren wrote:
| > sitting in miserable weather
|
| Only in some parts of country... further west you're
| frequently hiking miles and miles (in miserable weather)
| instead.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| There's the big split in types of hunters, as well.
|
| You've got hunters whose goal is the challenge and
| experience.
|
| And then you've got the assholes only interested in "How
| much do I have to spend to guarantee I kill a ____?"
|
| The latter leads to baiting, driving, scouting, and all
| the other activities that turn "hunting" into a single
| trigger pull.
|
| Unsurprisingly, those people tend to have a lot less
| respect for land, environment, and animal populations. No
| effort, no respect.
| floren wrote:
| I'm mostly on board with you but what kind of "scouting"
| are you thinking of here? When I talk about scouting
| before a hunt, I'm talking about wandering around the
| countryside, looking for animals, looking for scat, etc.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| One of my family members used to have a home out in a
| forested area, with access to a lake that had lots of fish
| in it. Not long after the fall of the soviet union, someone
| bought one of the nearby properties, and started fishing
| the lake with explosives. Within several years the lake had
| basically no fish left because of how indiscriminant the
| fishing method was. The family member and some of the other
| people who had access to the lake finally managed to drive
| out the dynamite-laden arsehole, but by then the damage was
| done. Even 20+ years later the fish population in the lake
| hasn't recovered.
| cjensen wrote:
| In Audubon's time, the only way to accurately paint a bird in
| detail was to shoot it, examine it, then paint it. It's also
| why so many of his paintings are of birds in unnatural
| positions.
|
| Even today, museums and universities sometimes pay for non-rare
| birds to be collected by shotgun. Collections are needed for
| certain types of comparative analysis when trying to sus out
| whether two birds are different species or just variety within
| a species.
| alnwlsn wrote:
| from Wikipedia - "Carolina parakeets were probably poisonous -
| Audubon noted that cats apparently died from eating them, and
| they are known to have eaten the toxic seeds of cockleburs."
|
| Interesting that this apparently didn't stop him from eating one.
| sharpshadow wrote:
| I think toxins distribute in various areas with different
| amounts in the body. Eating the flesh should have less than
| some organs I guess. Cats probably eat everything and they are
| quite small.
|
| After a while the toxins wear off.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| I'm reminded of the Ortolan Bunting, a bird prized in French
| cuisine and with a most unforgettable method of preparation and
| consumption.
|
| They're caught with nets, force-fed with grain, drowned in
| Armagnac, seasoned, and then cooked in their own fat. When you
| eat one, you hold onto its head and place it feet-first into your
| mouth, all while wearing a towel or napkin on your head to
| "shield from God's eyes the shame of such a decadent and
| disgraceful act" [0].
|
| 0:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210303221803/https://www.teleg...
| rwmj wrote:
| Unfortunately not a historic curiosity. I know somehow who ate
| one in France a decade or so ago.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _know somehow who ate one in France a decade or so ago_
|
| Technically banned for over a decade, FYI [1].
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortolan_bunting#Legal_status
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| First the foie gras, now this. Are there any other "Torture the
| creature before eating it" French dishes we should know about?
| alnwlsn wrote:
| Lobster?
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| I'm not aware of any recipes that force the lobster to
| gorge itself before killing it? Most lobster recipes
| usually involve bisecting the lobster's head with a sharp
| knife (killing it instantly), or dunking it into boiling
| water (which is probably incredibly painful for the
| duration, but _ostensibly_ kills it within 10 seconds or
| so).
| darby_nine wrote:
| > I'm not aware of any recipes that force the lobster to
| gorge itself before killing it?
|
| Presumably the above poster is referring to the viewing
| of the practice of boiling the lobster alive as torture.
| Morizero wrote:
| Not OP but yeah, it's even illegal in some places:
| https://i.redd.it/9njvxxae6pad1.png
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Why single out France or foie gras? When you look at factory
| farms across the globe, force feeding ducks is just one of
| many ways we torture the animals we eat.
| codetrotter wrote:
| > Why single out France or four gras?
|
| Because foie gras is defined as the liver of a duck or
| goose fattened by force feeding.
|
| If the animal wasn't force fed, it literally wouldn't be
| foie gras.
|
| Most other forms of animal cruelty in food production is
| because of industrialization. We could clean up many of
| those and still sell the products without so much
| mistreatment.
|
| Foie gras can only be made by mistreating the animal. So
| it's gonna be specifically called out.
| lechatpito1 wrote:
| This is a misconception, migrating birds naturally
| overfeed before taking their long flights [1] and a few
| farms actually produce natural foie gras [2]. There was
| also a NYT article about a farm in Spain producing
| natural goose foie gras by trapping migrating geese. [ref
| needed]
|
| Obviously this is totally marginal compared to the size
| of foie gras industry.
|
| See
|
| [1] https://honest-food.net/wild-foie-gras-is-real/
|
| [2] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-
| wine/food-tren...
|
| [3] https://modcarn.com/natural-foie-gras-in-the-wild/
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > Foie gras can only be made by mistreating the animal.
|
| This is not true.
| salad-tycoon wrote:
| Mistreating? They sure like to eat. Mistreatment if you
| were aiming for a long healthy life but this may not be
| what you are assuming it to be.
| Loughla wrote:
| It's certainly mistreatment. They're fed until they can
| literally hold no more. It's not great.
| dgacmu wrote:
| Not french per se, but the victorians also ate "slink veal" -
| an unborn calf either spontaneously aborted or removed from
| the carcass after slaughter. Not too popular (or legal)
| today.
| wepple wrote:
| I recall reading about this in "The Scavengers Guide to Haute
| Cuisine". In it. Steven Rinella creates a feast from
| Escoffier's classic book. Excellent read.
| BoingBoomTschak wrote:
| "Brutal."
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Evidence for solipsism, I say!
| office_drone wrote:
| > When they feed on grasshoppers and strawberries, Upland
| Sandpipers are "truly delicious."
|
| In our era where foodies exist and some number of them have
| effectively no spending limit, I wonder if any business raises
| sandpipers for use in a truly rare dining experience.
| bwestergard wrote:
| They are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty, and in the
| U.S. under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
| office_drone wrote:
| That just means that certain permits may be needed, and only
| in two countries out of the bird's natural range of two
| dozen.
| foreigner wrote:
| This is the plot of "The Freshman", which is an excellent
| movie. Starring Matthew Broderick, and featuring Marlon Brando
| parodying himself in The Godfather!
| federalfarmer wrote:
| We did some pest control on the farm this year and thinned out
| the pigeon population. A delicious bird, tasted like steak. I
| understand why they remain a delicacy in France and Vietnam.
|
| A shame that some of these less delectable birds are still
| extinct.
|
| Thanks for sharing!
| perihelions wrote:
| Also in the Maghreb! I believe that's where France imported the
| concept from (but I'm not sure).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastilla
| federalfarmer wrote:
| Pigeon pie is now a bucket list delicacy.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Obligatory:
|
| The Endangered species cook book:
|
| https://elizabethdemaray.org/2015/06/07/recipes-from-the-end...
| diegoeche wrote:
| There's a graphic novel I liked about the life and work of
| Audubon. For anybody interested...
|
| Audubon, On The Wings Of The World
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Why stop at birds? The Victorian William Buckland [0] had a
| personal mission to eat one of every kind of animal in existence.
| He was also appointed Dean of Westminster and, like Charles
| Darwin, belonged to the Glutton Club. Mice on toast were a
| particular favourite, apparently.
|
| [0] https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/08/26/victorian-
| zoologis...
| djtango wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, thoroughly enjoyed that read
| Loughla wrote:
| I was into it until he ate a mummified human heart.
| chasebank wrote:
| Funny this popped up on hn. A friend of mine in Montana has been
| hunting crane lately. Said they're dubbed "ribeye of the sky".
| Can't wait to try one!
| simonw wrote:
| My partner works in conservation and goes to a lot of wildlife
| conferences. One of her favourite ice-breaker questions is "have
| you ever eaten your study animal?"
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