Birds

I found an opportunity for supper staring me in the face this afternoon. I've posted a bit lately advocating the use of spring air pellet rifles for harvesting small game. This afternoon I was walking my dog in the back yard and noticed an unusual number of birds congregating in the unused pasture abutting my back yard. I thought about it for a while and then made my decision. I decided to try a bird for supper tonight. With the medium sized dead bird in my hand, I had reservations about three things. First, how much difficulty would I have removing the feathers and cleaning the carcass? Second, just how much meat would I get from it? And third, how would it taste?

So, with a little bit of trepidation I set out to clean the carcass. I expected it to be very difficult to remove the feathers. Wrong! They came out clean as a whistle. Just easily stripped them off. Within about 3 minutes I had a necked bird. I removed the head, wings, tail, and legs in less than 30 seconds. The next step was to remove the internal organs and find out how much meat there was. The process can best be compared to splitting a whole chicken. The most difficult part was cutting the sternum - cartilage and breast bone that separates the two sides of the breast. A small pocket knife worked just fine and I was able to open the carcass up without almost any waste of meat. Removing the internal organs only required a swipe of a finger and a little scraping against the back with the knife blade to completely remove the lung area.

Careful inspection revealed that the only part left that was worth fooling with was the breast. I carefully removed the breast meat in two pieces - one piece on either side of the breast bone - exactly like one must deal with the breast bone when cutting a turkey. I ended up with two pieces of meat, each about an inch long and half an inch thick. The meat was a deep red without any cartilage. The rest of the carcass I threw away. I expected the meat to have a very strong gamy taste, so I mixed about 1/4th cup of water with a half teaspoon of salt and soaked the two breast pieces about an hour.

I next had to decide how to cook my meal. I learned long ago that I really like Chinese stir-fry with vegetables and a little meat. I usually use about a quarter pound of meat, two handfuls of vegetables, and about a half cup of a combination of chicken broth, soy sauce, 3 table spoons of gin, 1/2 tsp. of corn starch and other ingredients to make the dish unique (particularly like fermented black beans and dry mushrooms), and of course garlic and ginger root. Tonight, however, I didn't want to mask in any way the taste of the wild meat. So I decided on half a hand full of frozen vegetables, 1/8th tsp. of garlic, and no liquid sauce or rice.

Using a wok, I added 1/2 tbs. of canola oil, and cut the two breast pieces in half, giving 4 bytes of meat. I added this to the hot oil and cooked about 2 minutes. (that's longer than I would cook, say, the same amount of chicken; but I wanted it thoroughly cooked because I didn't know anything about potential pathogens, and red meat I usually cook a bit longer) When the breast was nicely brown ( I paid particular attention to any unusual smell, which I did not detect), I added the garlic powder and vegetables. These I cooked a minute or so until they were almost soft.

Then to the plate and a double Martini in case the experiment was distasteful. I first chose the largest piece of meat before drinking anything so my taste would be at it's height. To my great surprise, the taste was excellent. Actually, it was difficult to detect any taste any different than any other meat I would have prepared in the same way. After that I relaxed a bit and ate the entire meal, enjoying the entire thing. I never even thought to pick up the Martini, which I am enjoying as I type.

So there you have an account written within an hour from the taking of game to the eating of a meal of something I have never seen described. This was an important experiment for me though. It solidifies my gut feelings about the utility of the spring air pellet rifle in harvesting small game that might add greatly to post pole shift food sources. I surely hope the birds survive to the extent that they can produce offspring, because there will be lots for them to eat and very few predators. That they actually taste good is, quite frankly, a God-send in my mind. That they can be easily taken with a spring air rifle whose ammunition is extremely inexpensive is a very important consideration. Believe me, I've eaten lots of different insects; but my meal tonight was very good. Period.

Offered by Ron.