How times have changed, and for the better!

This morning I was thumbing my way through my favourite cookery book, GOOD THINGS IN ENGLAND, a collection of recipes contributed by English men and women between 1399 and 1932. I came across an entry that caused me to think just how much how our attitudes to eating wild birds have changed in very recent times.

Under the heading How to Cook a young Swan there was an advertisment from the Personal columns of The Times, dated November 14th, 1931.

'Cygnets (young swans) supplied dressed for dinner and banquets - Master, Great Hospital, Norwich.'

The recipe involved procuring a Norwich-fed cygnet, preferably in September and stuffing it with a mixture of rump steak, shallots, nutmeg, pepper and salt, before roasting for 4 hours.

The birds in the photograph are black headed gulls and are best viewed through your telescope.