In his autobiography, 'Still digging' the archeologist Mortimer Wheeler
wrote of being given an air-gun when he was a small boy. He shot a lot
of sparrows in summer cornfields. Half a dozen corn-fed sparrows,
plucked and drawn, cooked in a stoneware jam-jar with a lump of fat,
made an excellent tea for a small boy.
At one time in Europe, people used to hang up old jars and pots on
cottages to encourage sparrows to nest - so the young ones could be
eaten. Pigeon rearing was done in the same way.
Sparrows were of course viewed as an agricultural pest.
Anthea Fleming
On 7/02/2019 3:27 PM, Michael Hunter wrote:
The decline of house sparrows must be multifactorial. Although probably
irrelevant in their overall population, small birds such as sparrows apparently
made delicious pies, slowly cooked entire for hours until bones and all were
soft enough to eat. These pies were responsible for the carnage of migrating
songbirds in Southern Europe, which still goes on despite being forbidden by
the EU , The generally shyest birds I have ever tried to see were in the
Camargue in S France.
Pie shy .
Had we had today's multicultural society in the 1930s when sparrows were
collected , perhaps the starving workers of the Depression era might have
gourmet dined occasionally,
And what did the Chinese do with all the sparrows when Mau decreed that they be
exterminated?
Food for thought,
Sent from my iPho
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