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Birdwatchers - what is this?



Eeyore

Colonel Hee-Haw of Queen's Park
NSC Patron
Apr 5, 2014
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WATFORD zero

Well-known member
NSC Patron
Jul 10, 2003
25,915
We had a buzzard table at the last house. The wife fed birds seed and peanuts, so many birds crashed into the windows we had a table to recycle them. This year we had 11 siskins in one sitting and twenty odd chaffinches. The buzzards came by daily for a snack off the table. We also had sparrow hawks wizz by to snatch the odd bird. Sparrow hawks are for speed and look like it when they fly. Buzzards wheel in the sky and sit on fence posts and trees looking down for mice etc. This lump in the photo is a buzzard or i'll eat my wren!

Couldn't find a wren recipe, but you can probably adapt this

Preparing and cooking ortolan is very simple. The birds must be taken alive; once captured they are either blinded or kept in a lightless box for a month to gorge on millet, grapes, and figs, a technique apparently taken from the decadent cooks of Imperial Rome who called the birds beccafico, or "fig-pecker". When they've reached four times their normal size, they're drowned in a snifter of Armagnac.

Cooking l'ortolan is simplicity itself. Simply pop them in a high oven for six to eight minutes and serve. The secret is entirely in the eating. First you cover your head with a traditional embroidered cloth. Then place the entire four-ounce bird into your mouth. Only its head should dangle out from between your lips. Bite off the head and discard. L'ortolan should be served immediately; it is meant to be so hot that you must rest it on your tongue while inhaling rapidly through your mouth. This cools the bird, but its real purpose is to force you to allow its ambrosial fat to cascade freely down your throat.

When cool, begin to chew. It should take about 15 minutes to work your way through the breast and wings, the delicately crackling bones, and on to the inner organs. Devotees claim they can taste the bird's entire life as they chew in the darkness: the wheat of Morocco, the salt air of the Mediterranean, the lavender of Provence. The pea-sized lungs and heart, saturated with Armagnac from its drowning, are said to burst in a liqueur-scented flower on the diner's tongue. Enjoy with a good Bordeaux.
 


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