Pigeons, doves, squabs ...
"an intractable bird " Elizabeth David
I have taken up walking again and today as I walked back from Eltham on a perfect day I was soothed by the sound of pigeons cooing at each other. There is one particular spot on that particular walk - about halfway - where you hear them. You don't hear them here. I had been trying to think of something to write about for my blog. I know I must return to my Milawa escape, but I didn't feel like that today, so, on hearing the pigeons - or were they doves? - I decided to investigate pigeons as food.
Doves, pigeons, squabs - they have very different images don't they? Probably summed up by the painting by Picasso above. Doves are romantic - symbols of peace - beautiful and pure white - released at things like the Olympics. Pigeons - well my son calls them 'rats of the air' - which I think he got from somewhere else. Pigeons fill city centres, scavenge food that's left around or fed to them and crap all over the buildings and statues. They are not loved. Though there are of course other pigeon associations. Carrier pigeons that used to be used for delivering messages, homing pigeons - the former carrier pigeons now trained to race long distances back to their homes, clay pigeons - not real pigeons of course, but probably so named because the pigeon was a widely hunted bird. Indeed in America one particular type - the passenger pigeon - was hunted to extinction. For not only are they a pest in the cities they are also a pest in the countryside where they attack the farmer's crops. These are the wood pigeons that are shot to protect the crops and to provide food in England.
Then there are dovecotes - which somehow sounds romantic and soothing, but which were in fact just breeding factories to supply households with food. And most of them were not that attractive looking either. They date back to really ancient times and had a continued existence to the modern day. In these were bred the squabs.
Squabs are baby pigeons (I think the wood pigeon kind) - a mere four weeks old which are reared specifically for food. You may not have realised that they are pigeons. Maybe they are called squabs to hide that fact. They are killed before they have learnt to fly when they are at their plumpest and tenderest. Grown birds are tougher and smaller. Which is sort of interesting, but also a bit gruesome.
So if the city pigeons are such a menace why don't we eat them?
"Most people would never consider it because we see pigeons eating out of trash cans and puddles of vomit but actually, does that not make them the perfect sustainable urban food source? A diet of garbage does not automatically mean foul meat; after all, the pig has served as a human-waste-to-protein recycler for all of history. And where would we be without tasty bottom feeders like shrimp, lobster, and catfish." Chowhound
And in fact I did see one quote that said that if pigs could fly they would be pigeons. This question was asked lots of times on the net and there were various answers, but mostly to do with the potential danger of eating city pigeons which had probably ingested various poisonous chemicals. But then, as Maggie Beer points out, wild wood pigeons may well have ingested dangerous chemicals from the sprayed crops they eat. And definitely the English eat wild wood pigeons. Maybe the Australians too. During WW2 it was a popular and cheap food, and I did see several English cooks/chefs saying that it was a cheap food. It sounds as if you can get it in supermarkets over there. Not here I think.
So it's a sort of no win situation really which leads to the farming of pigeons or squabs.
"Caelius Aurelianus, an Ancient Roman physician, regarded the meat as a cure for headaches, but by the 16th century, squab was believed to cause headaches." Wikipedia
Fashions and opinions change. So if you can get over your disgust at 'rats of the air' and your animal cruelty feelings then what does it taste like and how do you cook it?
Maggie Beer, who seems to be the Australian expert on the topic has this to say about how to deal with the two different birds.
"The differences in taste and texture between squab and pigeon are enormous. Tasting them side by side, you could be forgiven for thinking they were entirely different species. Both require very specific cooking methods. ...
The meat of the squab is thick and buttery and the breast should be served rare ... Cooked rare it is tender, moist and delicious. Squab is usually cooked very quickly at a high temperature followed by a long resting time. Pigeon, on the other hand, has to be cooked very slowly until the meat almost falls off the bone, otherwise the flesh will be dry. The flavour is strong and gutsy and the texture is fine when it has been cooked with loving attention." Maggie Beer
Or -
"With the texture of rump steak and a taste like venison crossed with duck, a simple fried pigeon breast, medium-rare is a carnivorous treat." Tim Maddams
I had a look for some recipes and found three from favourite cooks - Nigel Slater, Jamie Oliver and Delia Smith - all British.
Nigel Slater's recipe is for Pigeon with chard, pears and juniper and he has this to say about it:
"The breasts are lean and therefore dry. The skin rarely crisps, especially if you have marinated the meat with olive oil, bay leaves and garlic. The answer to both conundrums is to cook the breasts briefly and off the bone, either on the bars of a griddle or in a shallow-sided pan with butter. I include crushed juniper berries for their aroma of gin-and-tonic, though I actually think they smell more like the original Eau Sauvage."
He also has a recipe for Pigeon broth with mushrooms and crisp cauliflower on the same page:
"The bones are pure treasure. Bring them to the boil with water, bay leaves, celery, onion and plenty of peppercorns, then lower the heat and let them simmer for half an hour to a clear and subtle broth. Bolster the pale liquor with slices of steamed pumpkin, sautéed mushrooms or, as the ultimate delicious revenge, some of your home-grown cabbage." Nigel Slater
Jamie's recipe is for Slow cooked pigeon and looks pretty easy and Delia offers Braised wood pigeon with cider apple sauce and a confit of apples and shallots. Maggie Beer and Stephanie Alexander are the only Australian cooks I could find with recipes, but they are not online. You will have to buy their tomes - Harvest from Maggie Beer, and The Cook's Companion from Stephanie Alexander.
But I can't leave the subject of eating pigeons without a mention of Bstilla (and all it's other spellings) - the classic Moroccan pie which is made with a pastry much finer than filo, called warkha. In Robert Carrier's A Taste of Morocco he waxes lyrical about it and gives lengthy and detailed instructions on how to make this very traditional dish. The result is shown at left. It's a savoury and sweet mix.
"this highly spiced, highly flavoured mixture of the meat of pigeons mixed with creamy lemon-flavoured eggs and almonds, sparked with cinnamon and saffron, sweetened with pounded sugar and encased in a hundred onionskin-thin layers of pastry, so thin, in in fact, that you can actually see through one before it is cooked as if it were made of the finest worked lace." Robert Carrier
I have a few recipes for this dish but have never attempted it because it looked so complicated and sounded too different to be attractive to me. But these days it is becoming very popular - albeit in a bastardised form - with chicken and with filo pastry. Matthew Evans has a video that shows you how on the SBS website. Or you could go to a high end Moroccan restaurant and try it there.
And did I mention that pigeon is big with the Chinese too - who tend to roast it whole and glazed.
But who am I kidding? None of us - including me - is about to try to cook anything with pigeon. It may have been a popular meal in WW2 England but I don't remember eating it. We had rabbit. I did once have pigeon though - way back in my young restaurant going days - somewhere in London I think. I have seen it on the menu in France, but not very often - they seem to prefer partridge. Still it was very interesting to look into and it would be good if you could kill two birds with one stone as it were - pardon the pun - by getting rid of city and farm pests, while enjoying a gourmet delight.
