Since it’s clear you’re more likely than the average person to act upon this if presented with the opportunity, let me offer this really cool breasting technique:
Put the pheasant flat on its back, the wings will naturally fall out the sides. Put a foot on each wing, as tight in to the body as possible. Now, grab the legs and pull straight up. Firmly and evenly. What will happen is that you’ll pull the entire pheasant, guts, neck, head and all, right out of the body like a banana. Now you can cut the wings off with shears, and you’ll be left with nothing but a clean, bone-in breast.
That’s a fascinating, if rather gruesome tip. I wonder if it might fail with roadkill that might have suffered multiple fractures and other bodily trauma…
It had an obvious impact injury on its tail end and a patch of road rash on its back where it had hit the tarmac (no injury to the bit I ate though, fortunately).
None of that means it wasn’t a diseased bird that just happened to get hit by a vehicle, of course, but it seemed in healthy condition, apart from the injuries, and being dead and all.
City slicker checking in here. Where you are is this a game bird? Because on the streets of Seattle the pigeon is nothing more than a flying diseased rodent.
Instead of all that plucking I just remove the skin. Much faster. There is usually so little fat on the wild ones that is is almost worthless. If need be you can make new skin with bacon. I eat the whole bird. I do the same when I raise chickens. Just skin them, so much faster and cleaner.
Walking along a little two lane highway deep in the redwoods, I came across a warm, plump and seemingly undamaged gray squirrel belly up on the center line. I was with a friend who said he knew what to do with it and we took it home, slipped off it’s little glove of skin and stewed it…
IANAL but I seem to recall this got altered by a judgement in a case 7 or 8 years ago where a judge ruled that a car did not come under the heading of a hunting machine as when the law was drafted cars had not been invented. Prior to that you were not allowed to keep any wildlife you might have struck with your car.
I live in a semi-rural part of southern England - the bird was a young wood pigeon - quite a different thing from the diseased feral rock pigeons one finds in most cities.
Although I have visited cities where the feral pigeons look pretty healthy, and I have been tempted by them. People usually make noises and tell me about the horrible things feral pigeons eat, when I mention this, but I don’t regard that as a big problem - as I’m not intending to eat the digestive system, and if I objected to food on the basis of what that food consumed when alive, that would rule out a huge list of things, including lobster.
Nope! Ive done it hundreds of times and only the breasts comes out. Since thats pretty much all there is to eat its fine. Perhaps he was thinking of a rabbit, if you slit the skin near the rear feet you can pull the who shabang off like a sweater. I usually cut the head off then gut it. Pretty quick.
Am I allowed to eat them by first converting them into a peach? (feathers make quite a good slow-release fertiliser if buried under the roots of a fruit tree, so I’m told).
