four and twenty black birds......................

[fishfish 17]

anyone still eat them? its a semi regular here,good firm dark meat,it used to be traditional to have a rook shoot second saturday in february,we used to feast like kings in our house! mum used to make rook and ox kidney pie with light pastry...yummmmm! some she larded and kept it for weeks,some breasts were salted and smoked then threaded on string and hung in the pantry,it kept well and a handfull of them added to rabbit stews. nan made rook and belly pork sausages too! god they were the biz! i made some last spring i wish i had frozen a load!

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

Ye talking about 'Branchers', or full blown adult birds, mate?

[Butler 396]

When was the last time you saw a brancher in feb Ditch ?????

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

:sick: You're right, of course, Butler. Bit late when I wrote that and I wasn't thinking too sharply. I'm not fluent with the months of the calander either. But I just read that and had to go out. As I walked up the track I thought about it. MAY is when ye get Branchers, of course ..... :sick:

 

Oh, no. I've eaten those in my younger days. Absolutely bloody lovely too. Melt on ye tounge. Though I'd much rather I hadn't prepared them myself. That's a vision that still lives with me.

 

But adult rooks? Nah. I've seen some desperately lean times here. I've even then looked out over an acre half covered in rooks. Somehow the equation of rook + rifle = slow cooker just never found an easy resting place in my head.

 

Irrational, I know. Because they are intrinsically clean living birds after all. I guess it's just the association, by similarity, with the carrion crow.

 

No. I can walk past a field of rooks now. Rifle openly in my hands. I don't look at them and they don't get spooked by me. They're just not on my menu.

[fishfish 17]

yes adults but the cooking methods employed made the bes of them,they were cirtainly no tougher than shin beef! i must admit branchers are by far the best meat though!