Poultry Viscera and Other Offal

liuzhou · December 15, 2022

Some Highlights of Poultry Blood around the World

3. THE REST OF THE WORLD

Away from Europe and Asia, blood in any form as a food becomes rarer and rarer, especially that of poultry. In fact, I have only found one in all the Americas, other than versions of European and Asian dishes I’ve already mentioned. If anyone knows of any in North or South America, please let us know. Giblet pie, anyone?

Peru has come to the rescue with sengrecita which is fried chicken's blood with Welsh onion, usually served with rice, corn, yucca, or potatoes. It is believed that the ancient Peruvians used llama blood out of necessity. It was simple, nutritious and inexpensive survival food in hard times and high in protein and iron, combatting anaemia in a place where it is not so easy to find these nutrients.

Sangrecita with Yucca - Image by MiguelAlanCS licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license

Edited December 15, 2022 by liuzhou (log)

liuzhou · December 16, 2022

One highly visible external part of poultry, you’ve probably never even thought of eating. Both the hens and the cocks have them but the cocks’ are much larger and more prominent.

I’m referring to the combs, that usually bright red crown they wear on their heads and which are believed to have evolved to aid in the choice of mates. They are often referred to as cockscombs as, due to their size, it only usually those of the male which are harvested and eaten in some cultures, including the one I find myself in.

Cock with Comb - Image by Muhammad Mahdi Karim licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

When I first came to China, I made a decision to start learning the language by studying menu Chinese, so that I could get myself a decent meal. One of the first words I learned was 鸡 (jī), meaning chicken. A few days later, I was in a restaurant and spotted the relevant character on a menu and thought I’d have some chicken for dinner. In no time at all, I was served a steaming hot plate of stir fried combs! I realised I still had a long way to go in my language learning endeavour. But I had learned another new word. 冠 (guān) meaning ‘comb’ in the anatomical sense. Stick the two together and you get 鸡冠 (jī guān) which was what I had failed to read correctly and was about to eat.

They were somewhat gelatinous, but richly flavoured and slightly gamey. The French used to use them a lot as garnishes for dishes and their neighbours, the Spanish and other Latin countries often added them to their salpicóns. Italy uses combs in their cibreo served with tagliatelle (of which more in another post to come). However, their use seems to have dramatically declined. In 2017, chef Antoine Westermann added them to his menu at New York’s Le Coq Rico. It perhaps failed to delight the locals as the place seems to have disappeared and their website is down. Anyone know if it is still alive?

One place you can find them is on the shelf of my local supermarket.

Cock's combs in Liuzhou Supermarket

They are often served as dim sum and the place I first ate them is still there 25 years later with the same dish still on the menu. Outside of China, nearly all combs end up in landfill or are used in pet foods. Pity.

Edited December 16, 2022 by liuzhou (log)

liuzhou · December 16, 2022

Caterina de’ Medici (1519 – 1589) was Queen of France from 1547 to 1559 by marriage to King Henry II and was mother to the next three French kings (although she really ruled in their name). Apart from her reputation as a cruel, murderous tyrant which earned her the sobriquet ‘the black queen', she also has a reputation for being something of a gourmet and having introduced several foodstuffs, cooking techniques and even the fork from her native Italy to the French court and from there to the masses.

The problem with that is that it is mostly nonsense. France had been absorbing influences and foods from Italy since long before she was born. Her own father-in-law ran among the Italian elite and sampled the best Italy and France had to offer. The Romans probably introduced the fork into what was then Gaul, which became modern France. But still the myths persist.

Among which is one, reported by Guliano Bugialli in 'The Fine Art of Italian Cooking (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)’, which says she so enjoyed one dish that she nearly ate herself to death on it. Cibreo is a rich Italian sauce, but so much more. Very different from the familiar Italian sauces, it is a riot of poultry offal. Bugialli gives a recipe which includes chicken’s crests, combs, wattles, livers, testicles, and unlaid eggs.

from The Fine Art of Italian Cooking

What, you may ask, are unlaid eggs. Well, almost every time I go to the market or buy a whole or half chicken, I find unlaid eggs. Before laying her eggs, the hen has to make the things. At first only the yolk is formed and only later the shell and white form. If the bird is slaughtered during this process the yolks can still be inside. In most western farms, they will be removed before the chicken is put on sale in order not to upset anyone’s sensibilities. However, in certain parts of the world they are valued. I know they are here, but apparently they were, too in Renaissance France and Italy.

The yolks are thicker and richer than in a full-term egg. They are excellent for thickening sauces which is how they are employed here, but can also be added to soups, stews or hotpots

Supermarket Chicken with Unlaid Eggs

I’m sure Bugialli’s recipe is a fine one, but this is one of those dishes that every cook makes slightly differently. In fact, maybe no one makes it exactly the same every time. It’s a use whatever bits of the chicken you have dish! Most recipes today, leave out the unlaid egg or, at best, substitute a laid egg yolk. Here is another very different recipe.

The sauce can be served with pasta or with bread, toasted or not.

Edited December 16, 2022 by liuzhou (log)

liuzhou · December 16, 2022

Combining two of my interests – historical linguistics and stuffing my face with the bits of animals many people run away from – I have decided to attempt to clear up some confusion. Every website I look at has a different answer, few of them correct.

What is the difference between viscera, offal and giblets?

Viscera is from the Latin viscera, the plural of viscus, meaning “the soft contents of the principal cavities of the body; esp. the internal organs of the trunk; the entrails or bowels together with the heart, liver, lungs, etc.” internal being the operative word. Couldn’t be clearer, unless you aren’t sure what organs are! To my surprise the original meaning of organ is the musical one, although it meant any musical instrument as far back as 1000 AD.

The anatomical and culinary meaning didn’t turn up until the early 15th century and was defined as “a part of an animal or plant body adapted by its structure for a particular vital function, as digestion, respiration, excretion, reproduction, perception, etc.” So one would be justified in saying that the penis is an organ by dint of its reproductive ability but not viscera for want of being internal.

Testicles, too in many animals, but not in chickens and other poultry where the testicles are internal and therefore visceral organs.

‘Offal’ is derived from the English ‘off fall’. In our context, that means “the parts which are cut off in dressing the carcase of an animal killed for food; in earlier use applied mainly to the entrails; now, as a trade term, including the head and tail, as well as the kidneys, heart, tongue, liver, and other parts” so, anything except flesh in most modern western usage. In other words, the parts people have to be persuaded are food!

Although which parts that entails varies from culture to culture rendering the term almost meaningless. Sometimes it entails tails. My local supermarket sells penises of various animals and they have been cut off the carcase so here they are offal. In much of the USA and Europe they are awful.

Historically, the word is roughly concurrent with ‘viscera’ and there is a lot of overlap. I guess penises are viscera or offal depending on the softness!

“Giblets” is slightly older and originally (c 1300 AD) only applied to geese entrails. The word is from the French and meant ‘an unessential appendage’. Whether that includes penises falls under sexual politics and we don’t discuss politics of any kind here! In modern usage it tends to mean the liver, gizzard and hearts of poultry, but also often includes the neck which almost no one knows what to do with. 63.27% of people have cooked the plastic bag they came in, unaware it was there. 99% of poultry necks go to dog food. Except in China, where they go to me.

Usually, if you find a bag of giblets in a bird, unless you bought it direct from a poutry rearer, it won't be the parts from that particular bird. Indeed they may be from several different birds. But many suppliers have abandoned giblets altogether and only sell maybe the livers separately. China never included the giblets in a whole bird. They are too valuable and are always sold separately. Poultry penises are in short supply.

So that clears that up! You are welcome.

Edited December 16, 2022 by liuzhou (log)

**Shelby** · December 16, 2022

4 hours ago, liuzhou said:

Supermarket Chicken with Unlaid Eggs

I learn something new here every day.

KennethT · December 16, 2022

11 hours ago, liuzhou said:

They were somewhat gelatinous, but richly flavoured and slightly gamey. The French used to use them a lot as garnishes for dishes and their neighbours, the Spanish and other Latin countries often added them to their salpicóns. Italy uses combs in their cibreo served with tagliatelle (of which more in another post to come). However, their use seems to have dramatically declined. In 2017, chef Antoine Westermann added them to his menu at New York’s Le Coq Rico. It perhaps failed to delight the locals as the place seems to have disappeared and their website is down. Anyone know if it is still alive?

Cock's combs in Liuzhou Supermarket

Le Coq Rico did indeed close. At one point I had wanted to try it, until I saw their prices! Many years ago, a chef in a somewhat upscale restaurant had cocks combs on the tasting menu. It was quite good, albeit ridiculously rich and gelatinous. As if the combs themselves aren't gelatinous enough, it was served with a crazy rich/gelatinous sauce. I think I was smacking my lips for days afterwards!

Anna N · December 16, 2022

2 hours ago, liuzhou said:

But many suppliers have abandoned giblets altogether

And I feel somewhat cheated by this. I did find it curious that when I recently bought a couple of Cornish game hens, there was the usual warning about the presence of kidneys, but nothing about the neck that I found in the cavity.

**Shelby** · December 16, 2022

Just now, Anna N said:

And I feel somewhat cheated by this. I did find it curious that when I recently bought a couple of Cornish game hens, there was the usual warning about the presence of kidneys, but nothing about the neck that I found in the cavity.

The whole chickens that we used to get years ago always had the gizzard, heart and liver inside. Sometimes more than one. But that never happens any more. I guess they sell the parts elsewhere.

Anna N · December 16, 2022

1 minute ago, Shelby said:

The whole chickens that we used to get years ago always had the gizzard, heart and liver inside. Sometimes more than one. But that never happens any more. I guess they sell the parts elsewhere.

Yes, the liver used to be the cook’s treat and the rest made the most amazing stock for the gravy.

liuzhou · December 16, 2022

1 hour ago, Shelby said:

But that never happens any more. I guess they sell the parts elsewhere.

Yes. To pet food manufacturers.

Katie Meadow · December 16, 2022

Indeed, the first time my mother roasted a chicken shortly after she married my dad she cooked the whole thing, including the bag of giblets of which she was unaware. Also the chicken needed additional plucking.

Tropicalsenior · December 16, 2022

I think that maybe I have mentioned before what a terrible cook my ex mother in law was. My youngest daughter was born on Thanksgiving Day so my mother-in-law roasted my turkey. Yep! Still had the bag of giblets in the neck cavity.

liuzhou · December 17, 2022

Search Google for ‘duck necks’ and 90% of the results are for people trying to sell them to pet owners. There is even one site selling what they describe as “100% Human Grade Organic Duck Neck Bones” – for dogs!

Duck Necks

Search Baidu, China’s foremost search engine, for the same and there isn’t a pet to be found. Instead you get dinner!

You don’t get the duck’s neck inside your bag of giblets. You buy them separately. Markets and supermarkets all carry them and all over town there are small kiosks and shops selling braised necks to peckish passers-by. 绝味鸭脖 (jué wèi yā bó), operating out of Changsha, Hunan, is one of China's largest retail snack food companies with over 10,000 stores, mainly in China, but also SIngapore. The name means 'superb taste duck neck', which is what it mainly sells.

1919857993_duckneck.jpg.3cc906037de4da8b14462eee869a685b.jpg

Duck Neck

There is a lot you can do with a few duck necks. I guess most people outside China use them to make stocks and that is fine, but I feel that feet and wing tips do that job better. Or , of course, the carcass of a (preferably) roasted or unroasted bird. And there better things to do with necks.

Although duck necks do contain bones, they are soft bones and totally edible. Just skin the necks and you are ready to cook. Probably the most popular way here is to braise them. I prefer to cut the necks into 1½ to 2 inch sections, but they can be and often are braised intact. The necks should be blanched for three minutes and cleaned of any scum before proceeding. They are then braised with slices of ginger, bay leaves, dry red chilli, cassia bark, star anise, green onion and Sichuan peppercorns. Rice wine (preferably Shaoxing) and soy sauce are added to the braising liquid along with salt and, sometimes, sugar. Fresh chillies can also be added for a spicy kick. MSG optional.

Soy Braised Duck Neck

The necks can also be roasted alongside the bird or separately. There is a “recipe” on the internet which deep fries them, but it just consists of coating them in spices and deep frying them.

Goose necks are better boned, but otherwise can be cooked in the same ways. In France, they are often boned then stuffed.

Edited December 17, 2022 by liuzhou (log)

heidih · December 17, 2022

My stepmother adores those necks and it is where she veers toward at Chinese market here in US. She sort of steam bakes them - well seasoned.

liuzhou · December 17, 2022

In 1998, my then 25-year-old daughter came to China to visit me, flying from London to Shanghai, where I met her. We stayed there overnight and next day set out on a 36 hour train journey to Hunan*, where I was then living. At one point in the journey, a China Rail employee came along pushing a trolley cart, as they did all the time, selling snacks and drinks. Warm beer, mostly.

My daughter decided to lean over and look into this particular cart to see what was on offer and I’ll never forget her reaction. She leapt back as if scalded, with a look of horror on her face as it drained to white. The cart was piled high with braised chicken’s feet, complete with toenails. My daughter was no fussy eater but that normally placid young woman was in shock!

Chicken's Feet

This is something most westerners visiting China comment on – the Chinese people’s love of chicken and duck feet. They happily chew on these meatless collections of bone, tendon and sinew all the way across China. There are variations in this gelatinous diet. Five-spice feet, chilli feet. The only flavour is in the sauce or spice rub.

Soy Braised Chicken's Feet

Euphemistically, the chicken’s feet are known as 凤爪 (fèng zhuǎ, literally ‘phoenix claws’), they are more technically 鸡爪 (jī zhuǎ, ‘chicken claws‘) or 鸡脚 (jī jiǎo ‘chicken feet‘).

Pickled Chicken's Feet

They are sold as snacks and as beer food, but also turn up in soups and noodle dishes. They are served as dim sum. Here in Liuzhou, 鸭掌 (yā zhǎng), duck’s feet are considered by most people to be an essential addition to the city’s signature dish, 螺蛳粉 (luó sī fěn), being an ideal pairing with snails. In fact dishes of snails and duck feet appear on many menus.

Duck's Feet with Snails

Also the likes of 绝味鸭脖 (jué wèi yā bó), the chain of duck part shops mentioned in my last post, and its imitators do a roaring trade in feet. Convenience stores and supermarkets sell packaged feet for snacking on. Indeed, such is the demand that China runs out of feet and has to import them from Europe and the USA, where they are not wanted. Feet are a huge multi-million dollar business.

Duck's Feet

The gourmet end of this market focuses on goose feet, highly popular in Hong Kong and other Cantonese cuisine strongholds. They are often served with more expensive goodies such as abalone, truffles or rare mushrooms.

Goose Web

Goose feet are usually referred to as 鹅蹼 (é pǔ) or 鹅掌 (é zhǎng) meaning ‘goose web’, mere ‘feet’ being too downmarket for such a wonderful treat! Like all feet, they are gelatinous and have next to no meat. You use more calories eating them than they replace!

Cooked Goose Web

Of course, other places also partake in feet food, mostly in Asia. Indonesia has a popular soup, soto ceker, which is chicken’s feet served in a clear, yellow-tinged broth with spices such as ground shallot, garlic, galangal, ginger, candlenut, bruised lemongrass, daun salam (Indonesian bayleaf) and turmeric for colour. It is often served with noodles and vegetables. Vietnam has most of the Chinese preparations, but serves them intheir own fashion, with herbs.

Korea serves chicken’s feet (닭발 – dakbal) grilled with a chilli sauce as beer food, while Malaysia curries them. The Philippines has spicy grilled feet as a street food, bizarrely called adidas after the sports shoes brand.

In the Americas, Jamaica has a slow -cooked chicken’s foot soup and the feet are also curried or stewed and served as a main course in a meal. Mexico also has its foot soups as well as stews using the chickens feet. They can even rustle you up a chicken’s foot mole

As for me, the only feet I do is pig’s feet, but I do buy chicken’s feet to make chicken stocks. The gelatin is welcome there!

* Today, on China’s incredible bullet trains, it now takes a mere eight hours. Whether they still sell feet, I don’t know

Edited December 17, 2022 by liuzhou (log)

heidih · December 17, 2022

Bags of raw chicken feet (sans pedicure) are cheap and plentiful at my large Chinese market (99 Ranch). I always kept a bag inmy freezer to add to stock and sometimes braises for their gelatinous propertyy. As I've noted before, keeping the bag at the top pof the chest freezer also haalped deter teenage boys from raiding the microwavable snack boxes. A teen boy squeal makes a girl one seem innocuous. Also great as a prop in Halloween haunted houses.

Anna N · December 17, 2022

7 hours ago, liuzhou said:

As for me, the only feet I do is pig’s feet,

I have fond memories of sitting in front of a coal fire, sucking on pickled trotters.

Edited December 17, 2022 by Anna N
To change cool back to coal. (log)

liuzhou · December 18, 2022

For many, Christmas is a time of making wishes, often made after pulling on a wishbone. The person getting the larger part gets to wish; or is it whoever gets the smaller part? The tradition varies from place to place. But beyond that we don’t think much about wishbones. Unless you are Chinese; in that case you might be craving some.

The clavicles are your collarbones and you have two of them. One on either side. The name comes from the Latin clavicula, meaning ‘a small key’ “according to Littré ‘because it was compared to the key of a vault, or, as others think, because its form is that of the ancient bolts’.” They are the most commonly broken bones in the human body.

Poultry and other birds also have clavicles, but unlike you and I, their clavicles are fused into one, being joined by what is termed the furcula, again from Latin and this time meaning ‘a little fork’. The two clavicles and the furcula together make the wishbone.

The furcula not only holds both sides of the bird together, but acts as a spring aiding the bird in flight. As the wings descend the wishbone extends, then springs back helping the bird to raise its wingsfor the next flap. It is also believed to help pump air into the bird’s air sacs.

From medieval times, the clavicle and furcula of geese were used to make divinations, usually about the weather, but also regarding the likelihood of victory in war. The practice of making wishes based on whoever wins the wishbone pulling game is much more recent, only appearing in the 17th century.

Initially, wishbones were known as ‘merrythoughts’ which “alludes to the playful custom of two persons pulling the furcula of a fowl until it breaks; according to the popular notion, the one who gets the longer (in some districts, the shorter) piece will either be married sooner than the other, or will gain the fulfilment of any wish he may form at the moment.” That was considered to be a merry thought; hence the name. ‘Wishbone’ is only recorded from 1860 onwards, after which ‘merrythought’ all but disappeared. It remains in a few English dialects.

The Chinese are not aware of this wish granting property, they see the 鸭锁骨 (yā suǒ gǔ), the clavicle or furcula more as something to gnaw on! Duck clavicles are a popular snack, usually braised in a number of different ways. Five-spice clavicle, salt and pepper clavicle, sweet and sour clavicle, mala* clavicle etc. Clavicles are more meaty than some parts of the bird that are gnawed on. The wishbone from the Christmas or Thanksgiving turkey usually has meat attached; same with ducks.

Duck Clavicles from a Liuzhou supermarket deli counter.

* 麻辣 (má là) is the Sichuan ‘hot and numbing’ flavour sensation derived from chilli and Sichuan peppercorns.

Edited December 18, 2022 by liuzhou (log)

liuzhou · December 18, 2022

To find something almost as popular as a duck’s neck, we just have to move up to its end. For the most pointless food ever look no further than duck’s heads. The only thing vaguely edible about them is the skin; the rest is just cartilage and bone, but many Chinese like little better than gnawing on the inedible.

Uncooked Duck Heads

The heads, stewed in a mix of 30 Chinese herbs and barley rice, are only outsold by the duck necks at 久久鸭 (jiǔ jiǔ yā), a successful retailer of cooked poultry viscera and offal with branches (and copycats) across China’s major cities. They are also stir fried with spices as a popular beer food. Heads are especially popular in Shanghai.

久久鸭 (jiǔ jiǔ yā) - Image by N509FZ, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Duck heads with necks.

Image by Ben Stephenson, licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution 2/0 Generic license.

Edited December 18, 2022 by liuzhou (log)

liuzhou · December 18, 2022

Pigeons for sale in Liuzhou market

In 2019, I visited Scotland where I grew up. As part of this nostalgia fest, I visited the castle in my hometown where I ran into some American tourists who were just coming out of the castle’s dovecot (in most of Scotland pronounced ‘doo kit' with the stress on the first syllable.)

17th Century Pigeon Loft or Dovecot in Scotland

Interior of dovecot with roosts for hundreds of birds

The father was explaining to his adult son and his wife that the pigeons were kept in order to carry messages. The way he described it was like it was like some sort of avian version of Facebook.

Unfortunately, he was completely wrong, but I ignored him. Later I ran into the son again and we got chatting. I explained that this was my hometown and felt obliged to point out that the pigeons were not a medieval social media conduit, but were in fact kept for food. Soon, his father and some others turned up and the son related to his father what I had said. He was livid at being contradicted and said that I was being ridiculous “No one eats pigeons” the idiot declared.

In fact, as I could have told him but didn’t, Columba livia domestica or pigeons were the first birds to be domesticated, some 10,000 years ago and they weren’t domesticated so that they could update your current social status. They were domesticated to be easier to catch to be eaten.

No doubt, this joker thought I was getting confused with squab, which look like pigeons. Because they are pigeons! At least in the USA, pigeons intended for the table, usually about one month old, are called ‘squab’, merely to disassociate them from the feral city pigeons, which in my view and that of many, are the disease ridden equivalent of flying rats. In the UK, pigeons are called pigeons, table or not, although the term ‘squab’ is known by some. I’m not aware of any duality of terms in the European languages, either, although diminutive suffixes may be added in the case of young birds.

Here in China, there is no differentiation between the table birds and other pigeons, either; they are all generally 鸽子 (gē zi) although it is possible to differentiate should you really need to: the young birds are 乳鸽 (rǔ gē, literally ‘milk pigeons’), a term rarely used. Both are sold in the markets and supermarkets, usually alive to ensure freshness. Not only the young are available. Old birds are also valued.

The birds’ offal is also sold separately in supermarkets, so pigeon livers are easily available and, by the way, make a great pâté, not that the Chinese do liver pâté. Gizzard, hearts, etc. can be sought out online. The hearts are a favourite, too

Pigeon Hearts

The French love pigeons, although there isn’t a great deal of meat on them. What there is, is in the mainly in breasts. The ancient Romans ate pigeons, with the Roman cookbook ascribed to Apicius recommending that they be served with a sweet and sour sauce. The Italians continue eating them until this day.

They are also eaten in Egypt and the Magreb countries of Northern Africa, especially Morocco and Algeria, in the form of بسطيلة, pastilla, the meat pie traditionally made with young pigeon, although often replaced by chicken today.

Pastilla - Image by drea , licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Several Asian countries besides China eat pigeon, too. Here, the birds themselves are usually roasted and served whole, but in domestic kitchens will normally be deep-fried as few homes have ovens.

Roast Pigeon in Cantonese restaurant in Liuzhou

Roast pigeons in my home

Old birds can be slow braised or are used to make stocks for the ever-popular pigeon soup. This is believed by TCM aficionados to be of medical benefit to those recovering from serious illnesses.

Old pigeon used for stock pot

When I was recently de-hospitalised, I was advised to eat pigeon soup and a friend sent me everything I needed (except the pigeons) for the recommended recipe. Luckily, I had a couple in the freezer.

Ingredients for medicinal (TCM) pigeon soup.

Medicinal (TCM) Pigeon Soup

India and Nepal both use pigeons in curries while Indonesia deep fries them with spices and serves them with rice wrapped in banana leaves.

And sorry Dad, but the United States eats pigeon too, though admittedly less than it once did. Most of the pigeons sold in the USA today are sold through the various Chinatowns, but they are also served at some upmarket restaurants. The decline in sales is however making it an expensive choice, which leads to further decline.

Everywhere the birds are eaten, the viscera, offal and giblets are used in the same ways as that of any other poultry.

In some places, including the UK and USA, pigeon can be thought of by some as distasteful because they see the dirty flying rats in the cities. But, commercially raised pigeon is often safer than other poultry as it harbours fewer pathogens. It also has the advantage of being safe to to eat anywhere between medium and well done.

Just don’t be trying to catch one when you’re next downtown of an evening.

Edited October 6 by liuzhou (log)

KennethT · December 18, 2022

7 hours ago, liuzhou said:

Pigeons for sale in Liuzhou market

In 2019, I visited Scotland where I grew up. As part of this nostalgia fest, I visited the castle in my hometown where I ran into some American tourists who were just coming out of the castle’s dovecot (in most of Scotland pronounced ‘doo kit' with the stress on the first syllable.)

17th Century Pigeon Loft or Dovecot in Scotland

Interior of dovecot with roosts for hundreds of birds

The father was explaining to his adult son and his wife that the pigeons were kept in order to carry messages. The way he described it was like it was like some sort of avian version of Facebook.

Unfortunately, he was completely wrong, but I ignored him. Later I ran into the son again and we got chatting. I explained that this was my hometown and felt obliged to point out that the pigeons were not a medieval social media conduit, but were in fact kept for food. Soon, his father and some others turned up and the son related to his father what I had said. He was livid at being contradicted and said that I was being ridiculous “No one eats pigeons” the idiot declared.

In fact, as I could have told him but didn’t, Columba livia domestica or pigeons were the first birds to be domesticated, some 10,000 years ago and they weren’t domesticated so that they could update your current social status. They were domesticated to be easier to catch to be eaten.

No doubt, this joker thought I was getting confused with squab, which look like pigeons. Because they are pigeons! At least in the USA, pigeons intended for the table, usually about one month old, are called ‘squab’, merely to disassociate them from the feral city pigeons, which in my view and that of many, are the disease ridden equivalent of flying rats. In the UK, pigeons are called pigeons, table or not, although the term ‘squab’ is known by some. I’m not aware of any duality of terms in the European languages, either, although diminutive suffixes may be added in the case of young birds.

Here in China, there is no differentiation between the table birds and other pigeons, either; they are all generally 鸽子 (gē zi) although it is possible to differentiate should you really need to: the young birds are 乳鸽 (rǔ gē, literally ‘milk pigeons’), a term rarely used. Both are sold in the markets and supermarkets, usually alive to ensure freshness. Not only the young are available. Old birds are also valued.

The birds’ offal is also sold separately in supermarkets, so pigeon livers are easily available and, by the way, make a great pâté, not that the Chinese do liver pâté. Gizzard, hearts, etc. can be sought out online. The hearts are a favourite, too

Pigeon Hearts

The French love pigeons, although there isn’t a great deal of meat on them. What there is, is in the mainly in breasts. The ancient Romans ate pigeons, with the Roman cookbook ascribed to Apicius recommending that they be served with a sweet and sour sauce. The Italians continue eating them until this day.

They are also eaten in Egypt and the Magreb countries of Northern Africa, especially Morocco and Algeria, in the form of بسطيلة, pastilla, the meat pie traditionally made with young pigeon, although often replaced by chicken today.

Pastilla - Image by drea , licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Several Asian countries besides China eat pigeon, too. Here, the birds themselves are usually roasted and served whole, but in domestic kitchens will normally be deep-fried as few homes have ovens.

Roast Pigeon in Cantonese restaurant in Liuzhou

Roast pigeons in my home

Old birds can be slow braised or are used to make stocks for the ever-popular pigeon soup. This is believed byTCM aficianados to be of medical benefit to those recovering from serious illnesses.

Old pigeon used for stock pot

When I was recently de-hospitalised, I was advised to eat pigeon soup and a friend sent me everything I needed (except the pigeons) for the recommended recipe. Luckily, I had a couple in the freezer.

Ingredients for medicianal (TCM) pigeon soup.

Medicinal (TCM) Pigeon Soup

India and Nepal both use pigeons in curries while Indonesia deep fries them with spices and serves them with rice wrapped in banana leaves.

And sorry Dad, but the United States eats pigeon too, though admittedly less than it once did. Most of the pigeons sold in the USA today are sold through the various Chinatowns, but they are also served at some upmarket restaurants. The decline in sales is however making it an expensive choice, which leads to further decline.

Everywhere the birds are eaten, the viscera, offal and giblets are used in the same ways as that of any other poultry.

In some places, including the UK and USA, pigeon can be thought of by some as distasteful because they see the dirty flying rats in the cities. But, commercially raised pigeon is often safer than other poultry as it harbours fewer pathogens. It also has the advantage of being safe to to eat anywhere between medium and well done.

Just don’t be trying to catch one when you’re next downtown of an evening.

I love pigeon (yes, usually called squab here). They're usually only found in either Chinese restaurants (typically the Cantonese roasted style) or in a French style served in a more rarefied way (and a lot more expensive). Either way, they're delicious. I used to always have a few in my freezer, but they've gotten way too expensive lately - over $10 a bird!! And yes, one time I did see a few Chinese people ina park witha net trying to catch wild pigeons! Hopefully they weren't intended to go to a restaurant in Chinatown.

In your pigeon soup, is that a dried morel?

liuzhou · December 18, 2022

23 minutes ago, KennethT said:

In your pigeon soup, is that a dried morel?

Yes, my friend sent me a pack of dried ingredients intended for pigeon soup and it contained one lonely dried morel. I had a large jar of them already, so more than the one went in the soup. The rest of the pack contents were almond mushrooms (agaricus subfruescens) , pilose antler mushroom, cordyceps militaris, chanterelle, abalone apricot mushroom, shiitake, wolfberry and jujubes - all dried. TCM material.

Edited December 18, 2022 by liuzhou (log)

farcego · December 18, 2022

On 12/16/2022 at 8:33 AM, liuzhou said:

Combining two of my interests – historical linguistics and stuffing my face with the bits of animals many people run away from – I have decided to attempt to clear up some confusion. Every website I look at has a different answer, few of them correct.

What is the difference between viscera, offal and giblets?

Viscera is from the Latin viscera, the plural of viscus, meaning “the soft contents of the principal cavities of the body; esp. the internal organs of the trunk; the entrails or bowels together with the heart, liver, lungs, etc.” internal being the operative word. Couldn’t be clearer, unless you aren’t sure what organs are! To my surprise the original meaning of organ is the musical one, although it meant any musical instrument as far back as 1000 AD.

The anatomical and culinary meaning didn’t turn up until the early 15th century and was defined as “a part of an animal or plant body adapted by its structure for a particular vital function, as digestion, respiration, excretion, reproduction, perception, etc.” So one would be justified in saying that the penis is an organ by dint of its reproductive ability but not viscera for want of being internal.

Testicles, too in many animals, but not in chickens and other poultry where the testicles are internal and therefore visceral organs.

‘Offal’ is derived from the English ‘off fall’. In our context, that means “the parts which are cut off in dressing the carcase of an animal killed for food; in earlier use applied mainly to the entrails; now, as a trade term, including the head and tail, as well as the kidneys, heart, tongue, liver, and other parts” so, anything except flesh in most modern western usage. In other words, the parts people have to be persuaded are food!

Although which parts that entails varies from culture to culture rendering the term almost meaningless. Sometimes it entails tails. My local supermarket sells penises of various animals and they have been cut off the carcase so here they are offal. In much of the USA and Europe they are awful.

Historically, the word is roughly concurrent with ‘viscera’ and there is a lot of overlap. I guess penises are viscera or offal depending on the softness!

“Giblets” is slightly older and originally (c 1300 AD) only applied to geese entrails. The word is from the French and meant ‘an unessential appendage’. Whether that includes penises falls under sexual politics and we don’t discuss politics of any kind here! In modern usage it tends to mean the liver, gizzard and hearts of poultry, but also often includes the neck which almost no one knows what to do with. 63.27% of people have cooked the plastic bag they came in, unaware it was there. 99% of poultry necks go to dog food. Except in China, where they go to me.

Usually, if you find a bag of giblets in a bird, unless you bought it direct from a poutry rearer, it won't be the parts from that particular bird. Indeed they may be from several different birds. But many suppliers have abandoned giblets altogether and only sell maybe the livers separately. China never included the giblets in a whole bird. They are too valuable and are always sold separately. Poultry penises are in short supply.

So that clears that up! You are welcome.

Very interesting, at least as a non native English speaker that often wonder about different words with similar meanings, and the differences between them.

In Spanish (at least in the Spanish spoken in Spain) we have the word viscera with the same meaning as you posted in English. Let's say is more a biological term (like inner organs, but of course, it excludes brain; for example, for us, visceras means all inner organs inside our trunk).

We have a different word, casqueria, that means... well, anything is not a steak or or just meat... it includes visceras like liver, kidney, stomach, but others like the brain, tongue, eyes, testicles, trotters and so on. Not sure about marrow...

Casqueria is a word essentially used when referring to food. Maybe just the equivalent to offal.

Tropicalsenior · December 18, 2022

20 minutes ago, farcego said:

We have a different word, casqueria, that means... well, anything is not a steak or or just meat

Very interesting, thank you. In Costa Rica, any part of the chicken that isn't meat is called menudos. That includes the head the feet and all the viscera. I'm not sure about other animals because I've just heard them called by the name of the individual organs. The word menudo has many meanings and of course the one that we know the most is the popular soup of Mexico. It was the favorite soup of my husband's and I used to make it all the time for him. It only passed my lips once and that was one time too many.

Anna N · December 18, 2022

14 hours ago, liuzhou said:

No doubt, this joker thought I was getting confused with squab, which look like pigeons. Because they are pigeons! At least in the USA, pigeons intended for the table, usually about one month old, are called ‘squab’, merely to disassociate them from the feral city pigeons, which in my view and that of many, are the disease ridden equivalent of flying rats. In the UK, pigeons are called pigeons, table or not, although the term ‘squab’ is known by some. I’m not aware of any duality of terms in the European languages, either, although diminutive suffixes may be added in the case of young birds.

Where do doves fit in here? I know @Shelbycooks them, and they belong to the same family as pigeons. Are any domesticated or only hunted?