a dainty dish

In Little Town on the Prairie (Chapter 9, "Blackbirds"), the Ingalls family eats the pesky blackbirds that destroy the oats and take over the cornfield. They fried in their own fat, and at dinner everyone agreed that they were the tenderest, most delicious meat that had ever been on that table. Later, Ma bakes twelve of the birds into a blackbird pie.

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote that at first their fields were infested with only common blackbirds, but these were joined by yellow-headed blackbirds and blackbirds with red heads and a spot of red on each wing. I don't think that Laura meant the common blackbird from Australia (Turdus merula). I'm sorry, but who in their right mind would eat anything with the name "Turdus"?

The American common blackbird is actually the common grackle - Quiscalus quiscula. The red-winged blackbird is Agelaius phoeniceus; the yellow-headed blackbird is Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus. You will need to know these for the final exam.

The Little House Cookbook (Walker, 1979) has a recipe for "blackbird pie," only it says you can't hunt blackbirds in the United States, so you should use the European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris), which may be hunted.

I say we should be authentic and use blackbirds. You can hunt blackbirds in South Dakota, and almost everywhere else, for that matter. Especially if they've eaten all your oats and you can't keep them out of your corn, even when you run up and down the rows waving your bonnet.

Blackbirds are native migratory birds and thus come under the jurisdiction of the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, a formal treaty with Canada and Mexico. Blackbirds are protected by Federal Law (Title 50, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 21.43) in the United States except that they may be killed when "found committing or about to commit depredations upon ornamental or shade trees, agricultural crops, livestock, or wildlife, or when concentrated in such numbers and manner as to constitute a health hazard or other nuisance." Some states and local governments may have additional restrictions on killing blackbirds. Starlings were introduced from Europe and are not protected by Federal law. (Barbara Walker wrote that starlings were introduced in the 20th century, but it was actually in 1890.)

Blackbird hunting, anyone?
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:55 AM