13 replies to this topic

[jblakelock]

Came across this info and thought it was pretty interesting. Can't imagine eating Coot, Swan, Heron, Stork or most of the birds from the last list. Although I've read that Woodcock is very good eating.

http://historymedren...pes_of_fowl.htm

[dklucius]

coots and even some wild ducks and geese often feed in the muddy swampy shallow water areas and often taste stale or muddy or swampy. while the domestic ones eat grains and fresh water and taste a lot better. woodcock are often listed as game birds and taste a lot like quail.
but then most any of the birds raised with fresh water and grains often even pheasants and chuckars and grouse and turkeys don't have the strong gamey taste of birds in the wild.

[Shoveler26]

I agree dkuclius But yes they were a rather good dinner!

[jblakelock]

Shoveler, you've eaten Woodcock before? Ones that you hunted?

[dklucius]

when i worked in Louisiana years ago a guy i worked with lived back in a bayou and ate just about everything he could catch or kill. he would make squirrel and spagetti and alligator tail and woodcocks and snakes and of course racoons and ducks geese and frog legs and all kinds of fish and shellfish i tried samples of whatever he brought in his lunch pail. people would say it was great and tasted like chicken or porks or whatever until we told them what it realy was and then they would find reasons not to eat it.
i grew up on a farm and in several small towns and we raised our own beef and pork and chickens and ducks geese and pheasants and turkeys and guinias and also raised our own grains and hay and had springs and tonds of fresh water there is a real difference in home grown foods than any other in both taste and texture I did kill several coots as a kid and ate them but they were strong tasting and tough.

[jblakelock]

Thanks for sharing these great memories dklucius. I guess back when you were growing up in the wake of the Great Depression people ate a lot more wild game out of necessity, and more people lived on farms. Anymore people really don't eat fresh killed animals. I remember as a little kid in Spain in the early seventies having chicken at a restaurant that fresh killed their chickens and I still remember how good it was after all these years.

The strangest thing I ever ate was Raccoon. Not that the taste was strange, but it was just strange to think about eating an actual Racoon. I remember it did have a lot of bones. The gamiest thing I ever had was a wild goose.

I'll have to check if California has a Coot season. I know exactly where to find them.

[dklucius]

when i was a kid dad moved us out to nevada where he worked at a navy base. it was a small town back before freezers and refrigeraters though we did have an old ice box and the milk man delivered jars of milk and eggs and blocks of ice. the meat market was a butcher shop with a couple sheds out back and there were sides of beef and pork and the butcher would cut you off some steaks or roast or stew meat to take home. he also had a chicken house with live chickens and ducks and geese. you would pick out the one you wanted and he would catch it and chop off the head and you would take it home and pluck the feathers and cook it for supper. the grocery stores did not have coolers or freezers and the fresh meat or produce was in trays with crushed ice over it. i learned to hunt and fish as a young boy and hunted deer and rabbitts and ducks and geese and what ever else was around close.
we moved back to the family farm and we raised all kinds of animals and birds and hunted when we could. i killed my first snow goose when i was 10 and mom roasted it for thanksgiving. i got my first deer the next year at 11 years old..

[Bigfoot]

An interesting rendition of stories for reflection by the younger groups. Times have changed.

Bigfoot

[jblakelock]

My Dad was in the Navy; that's why we were living in Spain. In the family we still have the old icebox that my wife's great grandparents used to use. Although it's not currently in use. I've never killed my own meat, but have always thought as a meat eater I should be at least willing to do so. California does allow you to hunt Coot. It would be interesting to try.

[dklucius]

the coots were not very flighty and would be eating and diveing a short distance away from us while waiting for the ducks and geese to fly over. like the old expressions like sitting ducks. but i never killed anymore after the first two as they were very strong tasteing and tough as leather to chew.

[creeker]

I'm a hunter, and I agree with jb and dk, that if you eat meat you should be willing to kill it. That being said, there has to be some sort of challenge to hunting them. I just can't imagine a situation wherein shooting a coot could be challenging. That fact, combined with dk's less than stellar report of their taste and texture, will keep them out of my sights for the forseeable future.

[jblakelock]

Lol Creeker, I imagine hunting Coot would be just a slight notch above buying meat at the grocery store on the difficulty scale.

[creeker]

I'll bet if I could drop a trail of breadcrumbs from my local lake to my house, a fair number would follow.

[BigSkyKen]

When I was very young I used to go duck hunting with my father. I asked him why we didn't shoot the coots, that were so plentiful. His reply to me was akin to the following excerpt:

"During the depression years a hunter, not doing too well, sometimes shot a sea coot, legal, but difficult to eat. The recipe given by old-timers was to skin the coot, parboil it overnight and place it on a shingle, bake for at least an hour, then throw the coot out and eat the shingle."

I believe a sea coot is a cormorant, but I would imagine coot and cormorant would be similar in flavor.