I thought someone would link to the video of that story.
We used to have giant Elk on our island, not any more. Not saying there’s any link between that and the mental image above, just giving other large mammals that make for our shores a heads up.
We were camping last weekend in woods near Coventry, and one of the lads turned up with 17 freshly-shot woodpigeons.
We got them ready for the pot by snapping the wings off at the shoulder, then shoving a thumb in under the breast bone and pulling up to remove the whole breast.
Then peel the skin (incl. feathers) off the breast and trim off the meat.
Quickly seared on a griddle and nibbled, or chucked into the pot with some muntjac, neck of lamb and a bunch of veg.
Really tasty and v. cheap - most hunters will give you them for free if you ask nicely.
I heard someone talking about this technique on the River Cottage Message Board - are you a member there?
I browse quite a bit, but not a member yet… although I spotted your AS screen name in a couple of the “Wild Larder” threads 
This technique was shown by Gordon Ramsey on F-Word recently, which is why people know about it, but the lad who showed us has been doing it this way for years.
Takes literally 30 secs to prepare each bird - it’s the first time I’d tried to prepare a fresh bird (of any sort) and it was v. easy. You have to get your thumb right under the ball-joint in the shoulder - one twist and it just pops out, then you can pull off the wings.
You need a bit of force to get your thumb in under the breast, but once you’re in it will lift out fairly easily. Skin and feathers peel off in one go, and then you need a sharp knife to cut out the meat.
Obviously, the fresher the bird the simpler it is… your car casualty would be perfect
The other method is to remove some feathers on the breast, then use a sharp knife to split the skin down the middle of the breast. Once it’s peeled back you can cut out the breast meat in situ, but it’s a lot more faffy.
Given that you generally dispose of the rest of the bird, there’s no problem in pulling it apart to get the decent meat.
My guess is that **Mangetout **wouldn’t say no to any game bird he met in town…
yep, read through the whole thread just so I could do that one…
Thanks for that. I reckon if it was just the one bird, I’d probably pluck it or at least skin it so as to be able to make stock from the carcass after removing the breast meat (also, I’d keep the liver and heart, as these are tasty) - if I bagged a whole pile of them, I might be tempted to keep just the breasts.
I don’t understand all this talk about bagging game birds.
I mean, British women may not be my cup of tea but they’re not all that bad looking.
:eek: :eek: :eek:
There was a (very much alive) pigeon sitting on my storage building yesterday afternoon. Thanks to this thread my first thought was, “I wonder if he’d be good to eat.”
You want a pile of dead birds? Follow me to work. I’ve had a few of the buggars crash right into my car despite my best efforts to dodge ‘em and it looks like mine isn’t the only car they’re bouncing off of. Today was different; there were little balls o’ fur between the villages. I guess the wee bunnies turned right to go into the field across the streat instead of left into the hedgerows. Thankfully my tires are clear of bunny fur. For now.
I hit a buck once. In an AMC Pacer. At 55 mph at dusk. The first time I saw the deer, its head was coming through my windshield in front of my face. The low bumper caused it to more or less roll up the hood of the car, with the head hitting right in front of my face, then it flipped right on up and over, landing on the other side of the road. I didn’t need to worry about making sure it was dead, the impact apparently broke its neck.
In Ohio at the time, you could keep the deer if you reported it. So I traded an 8 year old car for a 9 point buck, dressed out at 150 pounds. We ate venison for quite a while. Not a recommended method of shopping, but it was effective.
A great Veddy British author name there (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, for those too lazy to click). My eyes/contacts are a bit dry just this second and my vision is a tad blurry in consequence, so I at first interpreted the cover photo as a nice little old lady holding the big chunk of ex-cow. It went well with the OP.
JRB
Also known as “Hugh Fearlessly-Eats-it-all”
Enough to form a hearty meal for one.
I regard it as an unproductive week if I haven’t created at least one piece of crow-food. Early mornings at this time of year proves to be a good one, with sleepy pigeons sitting out in the early sunshine falling on the open space formed by tree-lined roads.
Having said that, hitting a pheasant when driving at 80+ isn’t an amusing experience, even if it does produce a spectacular cloud of feathers.
There was one of those traffic police programmes on a couple of months ago that featured a motorcyclist that was hit by a pheasant. Went right through his visor, and smashed his face up pretty badly (he survived). I think the pheasant had just had enough of life and decided to go out in a blaze of glory.