with their heads tucked underneath their wings

[ppfuf]

So, about this feast/class I'm trying to put together for collegium. Yesterday, bonacorsi pointed out that in 1480 small birds such as chickens would have been served at table with their heads and feet on. I skimmed through the tiny number of pictures I have where plates of birds are visible on the table, and while feet might be an un-resolvable question, they do seem to have their heads. In one picture, the birds are "sitting up" in the bowl almost like they were placed to resemble a nest. Now I'm wondering, if I tried to serve headed and footed birds at the collegium feast/class would it be too scary? I don't want the feast/class to be too modern, but we're already planning a few things that might be (cumulatively) too weird, even for a willing audience.

Has anybody out there ever been unexpectedly served a bird that still looked like a bird? If yes, what was your first reaction? Did you eat it (eventually)?

Comments

[aastg.livejournal.com]

Yes, only it was a duck. I love ze duck, and heads and feet can be cut off.

Sure, some people may squig out (someone always manages to) but if you warn them in advance they can make their own choices. I would be surprised if you lost many attendees to that issue.

[catagon3.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I had to learn to stop ordering things with shrimp in France (Nice) because I couldn't deal with the whole beast appearing on my plate. I think the issue is how much unfamiliar/icky stuff do I personally have to do to get to the parts I want to eat?

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

In this feasty instance, the carver at your table would dismember the chicken and place the peices you wanted on your plate. You would not have to personally deal with the chicken, other than having to see it come to your table. Does that make it better or worse?

[catagon3.livejournal.com]

As long as it is dead and cleaned before being brought to the table and someone else dismembers it, I'm happy.

[dame-cordelia.livejournal.com]

I haven't ever been served a whole bird, but a whole fish [gutted, that is]is no problem for me.

If people are warned ahead of time and there's a trash bowl immediately available to place said extra parts, I think it would be fine.

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

We're also serving whole (clean, gutted, fins snipped off but heads on) fish at the Collegium feast/class. I'm worried the cumlative effect of "period table service" is going to freak some people out.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I would be having a huge internal battle in my head over "but it's good for them to be freaked out by Real Animals On A Plate" and "I want people to Looove my feasts!"

Good thing I'm not a head cook (haha).

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

Exactly! I really want to make this as period as possible, and that means serving with head and feet. But pile that on top of the carvers touching the food with their dainty fingers, sharing drinking cups, fish with heads on and I think the take-away message of the class becomes Ew! Germs!

Fish

[dame-cordelia.livejournal.com]

A fish is much easier to deal with if you leave the fins on. That way you can pull the fins off the cooked fish at the table and a lot of bones go with them. The spine is a separate part, of course.

I learned how to eat a whole fish from English relatives and don't get bones in my mouth any more.

You want me to be a server?

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

I was serving a feast once and was handed platters where the cornish game hens were sitting up as you describe, with heads, at least. I made them tell me how it was done before I would serve them (i.e., were the entrails still there, etc?) -- I wanted to be able to answer questions. Turns out the heads had been preserved in (gug) acrylic floor wax and dried out like little heads on wooden skewers and were separated from the bird by a piece of waxed linen.

I suspect that if you refrigerated the heads upright, and then did the separation with the linen it would be OK for your "customers."

I'd cook a bird with the head on but otherwise cleaned and prepared as normal to see what the result looks like. If you want the feathered heads, you may have to make a deal with a game seller.

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

I don't have any urge to present birds with feathers on, I can't imagine I could ever get it clean enough for me to cope with.
I am hoping to do a head-on bird in two weeks, as a test. Assuming my darn oven is working again. :(

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

So -- Have a talented person make Marzipan heads with painted feathers, beak, etc.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

You may want to ask this question on a wider-read LJ; the West community, if there is one, for example, or the SCA LJ community. Because you're going to get mostly answers from people who are self-sorted to like your approach to things, being your friends and all. ;)

forgot to say

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I could put a poll up on the SCA group here, if you want, and report back, if you don't want to subscribe to it.

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

I think I am subscribed to the West group, let me check and get back to you. I also put the question to the Westermark yahoo!group, but I've only gotten two serious answers so far.

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

I checked, and I am subscibed to West group.
Can you think of any improvements on the way the answers are worded that I should change? I fear I didn't think it all the way through last night.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

One always finds shortcomings in one's quizzes, the minute after clicking "submit."

I think if you gave them fewer options, it might give more useful info. Such as:

At the feast, your table is served a well-roasted and fully prepared chicken, but the head and feet are still on (fully sanitized.) Do you:

* Eat the parts of the chicken you normally do (or none, if you're vegetarian).
* Feel ill and don't eat any normal parts of the chicken.
* Fell very ill and have to leave the table.

Sheep

[metageek.livejournal.com]

I once ate sheep's head. Not the whole head, but meat carved off the head, which I had seen cooking in the pot. Not a problem. (I didn't like it, but that was just because the meat was too fatty.)

This was in a market in Mexico.

Re: Sheep

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

Was it still attahced to the sheep, or just a head out of context?

Re: Sheep

[metageek.livejournal.com]

Um...what I saw in the pot was large enough that it was probably still attached to a significant chunk of the sheep.

[ldyanna.livejournal.com]

When I roasted the whole pig, there were quite a few people that had a bad reaction to the head, tail and feet on it. But that was only while I was cooking it. The huge piggie was almost completely picked over at the end of the dinner, so the initial "yuck" factor didn't keep most of the people from eating it.

As for the fish, weren't we covering those those with a pie crust? That might lessen the problem, making it look less real.

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

Yes, the fish are going to be encased in a fish-shaped crust. When the crust is removed it will expose the fish with head. I think most people will be able to cope with that, ...although now that I think about it, it's been a long time since I was served a head-on fish in a restaurant.

[roswtr.livejournal.com]

I'm weirdly squeamish, but it depends a lot on the circumstances -- I just hate to be surprised by my food. In this instance, I don't think chickens with their heads and feets on would squick me, but I'm already prepared for it. I think, were I sitting at the table and suddenly presented with an apparently intact chicken, I might feel differently.

[helblonde.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't bother me.