Trade Secrets

[hvered]

They feed on eel grass. And grass. Swan meat has probably improved with modern husbandry.

The swanherd was talking about the monks at Abbotsbury not being partial to swan but didn't say what uses they had apart from supplying feathers for quills and stuffing. Their numbers are so large that they may have been kept as a trade item rather than for domestic consumption.

[Boreades]

The swanherd was talking about the monks at Abbotsbury not being partial to swan .

I can imagine.

What's on the menu today?
A nice bit of pork would be nice.
Oh no, it's swan again.
And again and again.

[TisILeclerc]

Don't knock fishy birds. The good people of Ness on Lewis thrive on gannet chicks.

Sailing north-west for 38 miles, they will arrive within six hours at Sula Sgeir, a narrow, uninhabited, guano-covered rock with 90 metre (300ft) cliffs, a ruined chapel built by an old hermit and a few prehistoric stone shelters. If the men can land a dinghy - only possible when the wind is not from the east - they will unload as quickly as possible.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/jul/31/foodanddrink

Even a mention of a hermit with the gannets.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/sco ... n-gugahunt

And concerned city dwellers want to stop it all.

For the enterprising get back to nature folk here's how it's done

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMWH5iGPwJ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIWIOlflwC0

[Mick Harper]

It is not whether seabirds do or do not taste nice. People will eat anything (and declare it a delicacy). The relevant fact is that, mostly, seabirds are difficult to harvest, and that goes for their chicks. As Tissie says, only the most outlandish people would even bother. However, none of this is true of waterfowl. They are extremely tasty, easy to harvest and that goes for their chicks who can be tamed effortlessly by imprinting to be even more easily harvested.

When we move on to swans, there is a reason why they are either horrid to eat or there are taboos against eating them. It is because, being the largest of the water fowl, they are guard water fowl rather than for eating water fowl.

[Boreades]

When we move on to swans, there is a reason why they are either horrid to eat or there are taboos against eating them. It is because, being the largest of the water fowl, they are guard water fowl rather than for eating water fowl.

Goodness me, I nearly spoilt my keyboard from laughing while drinking tea while reading TME. But it made I larf.

Perhaps you have a special meaning of "taboo" in mind that's not the "normal" meaning?

In any given society, a taboo is an implicit prohibition or strong discouragement against something (usually against an utterance or behavior) based on a cultural feeling that it is either too repulsive or dangerous, or, perhaps, too sacred for ordinary people

Feel free to say if what you really meant was an inhibition. Like the price. Or a fear of getting caught? Or is this one of those Urban Myths believed by Urban Metropolitan types? You'll have to try harder to convince us simple countryfolk about this "taboo". Round here, squire, the only "taboo" on eating swans there has ever been was the same kind as could get you punished for hunting the Norman Kings' deer.

Please try again, or I may have to set my geese on you. (Hint: they are also a very tasty very large water fowl used for guarding against unwelcome visitors).

Here's one we prepared earlier:

[TisILeclerc]

I normally knock wine over the keyboard not tea, wich I hold to be sacred. Tea that is.

Swan is obviously edible even though we have laws stopping us from eating it. Our taboos stop us from eating Fido unlike the Chinese and Koreans who have festivals in honour of the delicious meal. Pigs are a delicacy so much in parts of Asia that 'pig wars' used to be held with one tribe attacking another.

Carp is a delicacy in Europe but not here

So with carp as easy to grow as cucumbers, what's not to like? Some complain about the taste, which they say is muddy. Carp rarely features on restaurant menus and you'll be hard-pressed to find it in your local fishmonger or supermarket. Let's face it, from a gastronomic point of view, carp isn't cool.

In Britain, that is. But look further afield and you realise we're on our own. In Asia, among the Jewish community, and in Eastern Europe, carp is highly sought-after. More carp are farmed for the table worldwide than any other fish. In Poland and the Czech Republic the fish is the prized centrepiece of the Christmas festive dinner – visit any home on Christmas Eve and you're likely to encounter a carp languishing in the bathtub, waiting for its final knock on the head before being turned into a feast.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-styl ... 72910.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -carp.html

In ‘earth diver’ creation myths, which are common throughout Central and Northern Asia and Native North America, a divine being dives into the primordial ocean and brings up mud or earth in order to create the world. The Altaian Tatars described this divine being as a white swan. Egyptian creation myths instead speak of a cosmic goose called Kenkenwer, the ‘Great Cackler’. This goose is associated with the earth god Geb, and although some say that it is called ‘great cackler’ due to the belief that Geb’s laughter causes earthquakes, it is also credited with laying the cosmic egg from which came the world. It was also said that the cosmic goose created the world by breaking the eternal silence of the universe with its call.

http://www.thesoulofbones.com/blog/the- ... -the-swan#

Are we at heart still followers of the great cackler, unlike our eastern European settlers?

"The impressive weight of evidence for the perpetuation of the motif of the chain-bearing, music making, boat-or chariot-pulling swans of Urnfield and Hallstatt Europe in verbal form in some of the stories current in mediaeval Ireland and in Germanic literature, is one of the most satisfactory illustrations of the extraordinary longevity of cult legends which had their origin in pre-Celtic Europe.The persistence and frequency with which motifs, clearly derived from earlier cult practice, are found in the literatures of the early Celtic world is noteworthy. The Germanic `Swan Knight` legends, having obvious affinities with the Celtic material, probably stem independently from the same cult source, although in all probability reinforced and given a fresh stimulus by contact with the Irish Church during its missions to Europe."[Ross]

]

http://celto-germanic.blogspot.com/2013 ... solar.html

Or did the Irish Church want the swans for themselves. Can't imagine that.

[Boreades]

Swan is obviously edible even though we have laws stopping us from eating it.

Err, excuse me! The swan wot I had was completely road legal, from a licensed source. It was just surplus stock. Even if it wasn't kosher.

Carp is a delicacy in Europe but not here ... Some complain about the taste, which they say is muddy.

I've heard the same said about Grey Mullett. Poo-poo'd by some, but rivers in Devon and Cornwall are heaving with 'em. #1 daughter would catch them for us on a line. Lightly grilled by M'Lady with a touch of olive oil, lemon and black pepper, and a glass of white wine (cooled in a bucket of seawater, not knocked over a keyboard).

http://www.cornwallgoodseafoodguide.org ... mullet.php

#1 daughter also caught lobsters. We weren't Sheila McGregor enough to put them alive in boiling water, we used the freezer instead.

[Mick Harper]

You two are, as usual when confronted by a new idea, incapable of intellectual movement. And my not understanding country ways was, as usual, the source of my error. 'Twas ever thus.

Perhaps you have a special meaning of "taboo" in mind that's not the "normal" meaning?

Well, true, I was using shorthand but I expected to be understood as meaning that 'swan' is treated differently from 'goose' or 'duck'. Irrespective of any modern, legal or even technical distinctions between the two meats, any reasonable person would accept that in Britain (which is where we are dealing with) there is a massive difference. Duck and goose is eaten by everyone all the time, swan is not eaten by anyone at anytime. [And, yes, there are minor quibbles to both statements so don't bother to tell me what they are.]

I was offering a reason for that difference. I expected to be challenged on that reason, I wasn't expecting to be told there is no difference. But unless either of you would care to offer up alternative explanations for that difference, Hatty and I will continue on our merry way unencumbered. We already have given our first lecture on the subject.

[TisILeclerc]

Swans are gods as I showed earlier and we don't eat gods.

Well, Christians eat their god of course but he wasn't a swan. Just a dove or pigeon unless he was a fish of course

[Mick Harper]

Yes, but why are swans gods?