Pigeons- edible messengers?

Arkwright · Tar Sands Joined: Jan 01, 2005 Posts: 89 Location: Finland

I accidentally surfed to homepage of pigeonfarmer. Messengerpigeons are nowdays kept as a hobby, especially popular in Belgium. ( Piba.be ) They hold lots of competitions and the distances and speeds that pigeons can travel to home are astonishing, record being 17000 km over 18 days.

It made me wonder, are/were pigeons ever raised for food purposes and is it practical? Or does pigeon-pie refer only to hunted kind?

In slightly romantic sense, wouldnt it be fancy to have local doomer communities communicating trough pigeon-mail Razz

Kingcoal · Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 8:26 pm Post subject: Re: Pigeons- edible messengers?

Walk around the city of Philadelphia and you will see pigeons all over the place. In the 1700's pigeons were a staple food. Back then, beef and pork were occasional delicacies. Pigeons weren’t good for much else, so they ate them. I believe that this was also common in Europe at the time.
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steam_cannon · Expert Joined: Dec 28, 2006 Posts: 2466 Location: MA

It's been done before. I guess they are like tasty little chickens. In Ukraine, my wife was telling me about how homeless often roasted Pigeons on sticks in the memorial gas flame monument... Laughing

Many thinks can look like food if you are hungry... Rolling Eyes

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ROAST PIGEON WITH SAVOY CABBAGE
http://www.pettavel.com/pages/pigeon.html

Pigeon Coated with Mango Sauce
http://www.finestwine.com/en/Pigeon-Coated-with-Mango-Sauce.html

What... is the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow?
http://www.armory.com/swallow.html

nocar · Intermediate Crude Joined: Nov 05, 2004 Posts: 680

Are there any Danes on this forum? I have the impression that eating pigeons is fairly common in Denmark. Common enough that everyone knows that pigeons can be good to eat, but not so common that most Danes have it regularly.

nocar

Revi · Fusion Joined: Apr 25, 2005 Posts: 3252 Location: Maine

We used to keep pidgeons in NYC. We would take them to the Puerto Rican butcher shop where they would cut them up and put them in white paper marked squab. We called them Rock Cornish Game Hens. They were quite good.

Laughs_Last · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jul 26, 2005 Posts: 850

One of my great grandfathers raised squab for a living. That's all I know about that.

Revi · Fusion Joined: Apr 25, 2005 Posts: 3252 Location: Maine

I know that they are called rock doves, but they were more palatable when called squab or rock cornish game hen. They weren't bad, but not nearly as tasty as a "partridge".

mommy22 · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 22, 2005 Posts: 270

Our family used up a bit of oil travelling to France a few weeks ago, and it's funny that I would see this subject.
We were at a medieval castle, and there was still part of a "pigeonnaire" still standing (but not used). Anyway, the info that they had there about it was that at the time (5oo years ago) they kept over 2000 pigeons in a big roosting area (tall walls with little nesting boxes built into the walls). The people used them for eggs (I wonder how many it took to make breakfast!), meat(as described by previous posters), and fertilizer for the gardens.
Hmmm...might be an interesting idea for urban areas?

azreal60 · Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 9:04 pm Post subject: Re: Pigeons- edible messengers?

An author I like, Mercedes Lacky, writes a fantasy fictional novel series based around a country called Valdemar. In one book, she describes how the queen of the country outlawed statue's unless they served a purpose for the common good. So people started including stuff into their statues. One of the one's listed was a giant pigeon coop, that served to provide meat and eggs for almost the entire city who couldn't afford farm raised.
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horsestoaster · Heavy Crude Joined: Feb 07, 2006 Posts: 109

Domestic pigeons are decent squb.probably as tasty as quail I guess.I wouldn't want to fool with wild pigeons since they are likely to come in contact with some pretty nasty stuff .They are pretty hardy and easy to breed.We raise pheasants and they can be a little harder to raise but you get more product in the end I think.Quail are more difficult to shoot than pigeons too,in my opinion.Would be a whole lot better than nothing if pigeons were a source of protein/meat!!

Pretorian · Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 9:51 pm Post subject: Re: Pigeons- edible messengers?

FreakOil · Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 10:41 am Post subject: Re: Pigeons- edible messengers?

I've eaten pigeon before, which should come as no surprise if you look at my location. It's quite good. That's all I have to say.

azreal60 · Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 12:16 pm Post subject: Re: Pigeons- edible messengers?

Facinating. You'll have to post on conditions and policies in place in china. Too often I see people posting about china who haven't ever been there.

Your english is excellent, much better than any attempt I can make at a foreign language. Are you orginally from another country?
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Azreal60

Pretorian · Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 2:14 pm Post subject: Re: Pigeons- edible messengers?

well my English is far from excellency, as I dont read much in English lately and dont worry too much about spelling.
As for learning languages in general, dont get upset, its probably narrow-minded people's privilege, I assume. It seems that only people with small heads and very thick scull-bones are able to keep all those meaningless silly sounds and rules inside of their's walnut-sized brains. A paradox, or may be an unfair racial discrimination? Noone knows for sure.
And the answer for you question will be yes, I am a foreigner and English is my fourth language. Far from being the last one, too.

Laughs_Last · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jul 26, 2005 Posts: 850

I recently noticed that a local restaurant has a pigeon trap setup on the roof of their building, in a location that is hidden from the ground. I will think twice before ordering the chicken soup.