Yeah, it seems like a lot of people have a perception of pigeons as just city vermin (an understandable position if you live in a city), but outside of that context, wood pigeons and rock doves (the wild version of the city pigeon) are excellent game birds. Not a lot of meat there, but what there is, is a serious rival for any other kind of meat or poultry.
The groundskeeper at one of our local cricket grounds is in a permanent battle with pigeons (who do love grass seed) because the neighbouring field is given over to their use by the farmer. Who then hires a specialist shooter to bag 100 or so every so often, which are sold to the French.
The Copenhagen townhall have had pigeons from 1905 until 2014 when they got some disease and had to be slaughtered. Members of the town council could get squabs as a perk. As far as I know there are no pigeons anymore.
Wood pigeon are much bigger than rock pigeon or their citi-fied brethren. Mine clock 500 - 600 grams (1.1 to 1.3 lbs.) live weight, and they are mostly breast, wood pigeon being excellent, powerful flyers and downright poor walkers.
I figure one wood pigeon’s breast meat (c. 6 oz.) for one person, and I’ve never had an eater complain (we’re not in America, though). The meat is dense, dark and filling, but not tough or dry (3 - 4 minutes on a hot pan, frequently turning, is the way to go).
Yeah, the live poultry places here in Chicago should have them, as well. I just looked up the menu of one, and they do sell them. Now where they get their pigeons, I don’t know. I do remember my father occasionally buying pigeon at one of these places for soup, IIRC, back in the 80s, where these places were far more plentiful than now.
Because of this thread, I looked at a couple of websites devoted to raising pigeons for meat. It looks like the favored breeds for this are chunky, meaty-looking birds, much heftier than your average rock dove or city pigeon.
The couple of times I’ve had squab, it was one or two rare breast filets, served with a fruity rich sauce. I’d buy squab at a local specialty store and serve it at home once in awhile, but my husband is nauseated at the idea of eating pigeons (or any other game birds - says poultry should not be dark like beef).
Last time I ate wood pigeon it was roadkill - driving along a country lane, the van in front of me suddenly emitted a puff of feathers and I saw the bird bounce over the roof onto the road in front of me (dead). Rather than fully dress the bird I just opened the skin on the breast and cut out the two breast fillets (I tossed the remainder of the carcass in the woods for a fox to find).
Apparently a lot of people who shoot pigeons only take the breast fillets - there’s not a lot of meat elsewhere unless you’re making soup.
My pigeon hobbyist friend had a neat gig for a bit. A local municipality was looking for someone to trap and remove hundreds/thousands of feral pigeons (what people call city pigeons) from a deserted factory. They offered a three month contract which my friend signed and went to work.
He baited several areas with shelled corn. Then he returned and placed his traps, basically large welded wire cages equipped with servos from radio controlled airplanes (his invention/design).
Using a red flashlight, he quietly observed his traps at night and sprung them by remote control, catching hundreds at a time. He then took the filled traps to a bird-dog club in Maryland where they purchased the pigeons for a buck a bird for use in training.
After three months the factory was reevaluated by the town. Because it was pigeon free they no longer needed my friend’s services.
I find it interesting that the European wood pigeon had never been introduced to Nort America or if it has been introduced why it was not successful. The Europeans seem to be very fond of them unlike their feral cousins.
Two or three pheasants per person? I’ve got hold of a whole pheasant twice in the past year, and each one made two or three meals for two people (the third meal being a curry with various leftover bits and bobs). Are your pheasants much smaller? Your appetites much bigger?
Maybe a bit of each. The birds were shot at a hunting preserve, where they were released with the intention of being shot.
I hunt doves, and yes, only the breasts are worth taking. Two types around here, mourning doves and whitewing doves, the whitewings are noticably bigger by perhaps 15-20%.
It turns out that our cat loves dove meat. I mean absolutely goes nuts for it. I’m a bit surprised that dove or pigeon isn’t a major offering in cat food. I don’t know the economics of it, just that if cats had their say in the matter it would be.
Steven Rinella’s early book “A Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine” goes into depths about his attempts to recreate an Escoffier feast using hunted and foraged foods, and a significant part are his attempts to raise squab from urban pigeons captured under an overpass.
Pigeons are basically doves, so much that many in the Columbidae family can be interchangeable called either. And mourning doves are one of the most popular hunted birds, if in a narrow season in North America. Lot of people also eat street pigeons aka rock doves found in rural settings, I can’t imagine that the meat is greatly “spoiled” by urban living and there aren’t many (any?) bird diseases that humans can catch that aren’t mitigated by proper handling and cooking.
And of course urban pigeon keeping is popular enough, with Mike Tyson being the best-known proponent. Yes, that Mike Tyson.
I dunno. I’ve seen pigeons pecking around for food in pretty filthy places; it doesn’t worry me at all that they feast on human vomit outside of nightclubs (that’s just regular food that someone else had a go at eating first); it doesn’t worry me that they eat food that is partly decayed or contaminated with foodborne pathogens; cooking will take care of that and I’m not expecting to eat their digestive system anyway. It would concern me that they eat scraps of food that have fallen down onto train tracks or street gutters which are highly contaminated with pollutants that might have accumulated in the meat of the bird.
Certainly having animals eat things we wouldn’t is fine. Pigs eating slop as an example.
But I have seen urban pigeons getting into all sorts of mess. While many or even most urban pigeons might be fine for eating I have seen some who I am pretty sure are unhealthy and I would never, ever consider for dinner.
And therein lies the problem. You just do not know. Instead, go for the farm raised pigeons. Much more likely to be safe for consumption I’d think.
Ever eat crabs? Delicious but I don’t want to think about what they’ve eaten.
Sure. I wouldn’t eat crabs that I caught in an industrial estuary. I’m not concerned about my food’s food being ‘icky’. I am concerned if it contains high levels of say cadmium.
I disagree. Crow = cuervo. Raven = corneja. The tequila is a crow, not a raven.
Most people cannot distinguish a crow from a raven (I am not sure I could from a long way away), but Spanish has two names for them, one for each species.
Concerning the culinary question, in Europe they are sold on speciality shops. and I eat them sometimes. They are good, with a slight liver aftertaste, firm meat and they are indeed easy to overcook, which makes them dry. But if you manage to get them au point, they are sublime. I like them with raisin sauce, with just a hint of cinnamon.
This may be the right place to mention the passenger pigeon, poor thing. Must have tasted really good. Alas! It’s gone for good:
(sorry if this has been mentioned already, I am answering halfway through the thread so far)
Babcock, WI claims / claimed to have the last wild passenger pigeon, but Wikipedia says Ohio. Maybe the sign has been modified to say the last in Wisconsin.
Brian