Eating Blackbirds

“Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye

Four and twenty blackbirds were baked in a pie

When the pie was opened the birds began to sing

Was not this a dainty dish to set before the king?”

At least in the nursery rhyme  the blackbirds are alive. Indeed, this possibly harkens back to gastronomic theatre of the sixteenth century where live birds were encased in a pie crust so that they burst forth as it was cut. In a book called “Empilario or The Banquet of 1589” there is a recipe “to make pies so that the birds may be alive in them and fly out when it is cut up.” As such a piece of theatre for a lavish Tudor banquet.

However, blackbirds are eaten and you only need to go onto You Tube to see them being shot and trapped and subsequently cooked in Turkey. Similarly there is a long tradition of eating blackbirds in Cyprus in spite of a ban from killing songbirds since 1974. Indeed in the 1980’s I recall a Spalding wildfowler returning from Cyprus alarmed that they were selling tinned blackbird pate as a delicacy. The liver of a blackbird is tiny and it would take many to produce a tin of pate. Even in 2023 this was recorded as still being a Cypriot delicacy with organized crime gangs doing the killing of around 435,000 songbirds a year.

Blackbirds have featured on the tables of England. Indeed, in 1541 Archbishop Thomas Cranmer sought to moderate the food on the tables of the clergy by rationing the servings by rank. For example, Bishops could eat two partridges at a sitting, but Archbishops were permitted three. The number of blackbirds was also stinted to six at an Archbishop’s table, and to four for a Bishop; but little birds (as larks, snipe, etc.) the number was not to exceed twelve.

Blackbirds were acceptable eating well into the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The following prosecution set before Bristol magistrates in January 1848 for the theft of cooked blackbirds gives an amusing insight into this:

“ Henry Flook and George Predy were charged with stealing three dead birds and half a pound of butter from the Britannia tavern at St. James’s back. It appeared that on the previous night the landlord, being somewhat nice, thought he would have a relish for his supper, and, accordingly, he directed his servant to put down a couple of blackbirds and a snipe to roast with toast underneath to catch the savoury drippings. Soon after the birds had been placed on the jack the prisoners came in, armed with some bread and butter and celery, and having called for some beer they began to take their supper. Unfortunately cooky was a little drowsy, and fell asleep, from which she was suddenly aroused by the sharp call of her mistress, which informed her that the strangers had gone out and demanded whether they had paid the reckoning. She replied that they had; but looking around to her horror that the birds had flown. The alarm was given, a pursuit commenced, and the prisoners were at length captured by P.C.222, and on the ground behind them were the feet of a blackbird and the bill of a snipe, which, no doubt, formed the poor remains of the landlord’s supper. The case was not pressed against them, and they were admonished and discharged.”[i]

In Victorian times sensibilities were such that eating blackbirds was deemed distasteful or something only the French would do. However, it was still acceptable in rural areas and was sometimes deemed a child’s meal whilst the parents ate beef or mutton.

The intentional killing of songbirds was first restricted under the Sea Birds Preservation Act of 1869, but these restrictions were relaxed in World War I. Indeed, the relaxation of bird protections in 1916 brought much outcry from many quarters, including farmers who feared that farm-friendly species such as blackbirds could be decimated. Fortunately the eating of songbirds remained largely a minority rural activity. Blackbirds were, like game, protected with an open season from the end of August to the end of January.

To prepare to eat blackbirds were skinned, not plucked. Having been skinned the birds had their breast fillets cut away, seasoned with salt and pepper, rolled in egg and breadcrumbs before being fried gently in butter. Alternatively they were roasted wrapped in a rasher of bacon.

Thankfully the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act created full legal protection together with prescribed penalties and the blackbird can now sing in the dead of night without being regarded by gastronomes.

Female blackbird

[i] Bristol Mercury January 8^th 1848