Not Yuck, Yum

I had pigeon for dinner the other night. I went into it with an open mind but somewhere lurking in the recesses of my brain were thoughts of the millions of flying scavengers that plague the metropolitan cities in the world...in one word, yuck.

But yuck was out of luck. The word for the evening was yum!

Pigeon, hands down, is one of the most delicious meats and definitely the best tasting bird I've ever eaten. Simply stated, it's a better duck with the delicious slighty gamey taste of duck yet without the fat.

Now that I'm comfortably back at my abode I thought I'd do what I do, Google pigeon and see what it's really all about and what an interesting story it 'tis...

• The pigeon derives from the rock dove and was one of the first animals to be domesticated, some 10,000 years ago, in the Middle East.
• They may have been the first bird to be domesticated for food in ancient Egypt and the Middle East. Pigeon dishes feature in traditional cuisines in Africa, Asia, and Europe, and Latin America and the poultry is typically served as a delicacy– prized for its dark, rich meat.
• There are around 300 varieties of the bird.
• Pigeons were so popular that they were carried on European ships to serve as food for settlers in North America. The street pigeons in the US are all descendants of these domesticated birds.
• In the U.S., pigeons were kept mostly on estates, but some entrepreneurs tried to launch large-scale pigeon farms beginning in the early 1900s.
• It's not advisable to eat a "city pigeon" unless it's been properly checked for parasites, even then it may contain high levels of lead and other toxins. One chef commented that the meat of a city pigeon would likely be very stringy anyway because the bird flies so much.
• The term squab now refers to the meat of the baby pigeon which is butchered before it begins to fly...who knew.

If you ever see pigeon or squab on a menu, try it...you won't be sorry.

Bon appetite!