[Sca-cooks] Hoopoe common sense

[Suey]

	Elise Fleming wrote that blogs can be questionable and misleading. I agree. I think Emilia G. Sevilla was negligent by not citing her source when she stated that the hoopoe was redressed in its plumage at banquets and she is irritating as she does not reply to my messages asking about this.
	Now those researching English medieval food are blessed with publications like the Form of Curye giving banquet menus. Probably due to the Inquisition a lot of Spanish menus were burned. Also prior to that the Muslims in Spain burned their Muslim enemies' libraries in Cordoba and elsewhere.
	Anyway this is my last correction to the corrections of todays corrections of Hoopoe:
*Abudilla*, OCast. habudilla, L. Upupa epops, Eng. hoopoe. Avenzoar said that he who takes feathers or the tongue of a hoopoe will be successful in business. Villena lists the meat as medicinal as it was thought that if one ate the meat it would sharpen the mind. In the Old Testament the bird is on the list of abominations, see Lev 11:19 an Dt 14:18. From there Moses prohibited consumption of hoopoe meat, thus the Torah prohibits Jews from eating it. (Who wants Jews more intelligent then they are? See langoustines.) If we have a prohibition from eating it then we have people eating it. The hoopoe does not seem to have lived in England but was abundant in Spain during the Middle Ages and still hoopoes are found on the peninsula. Small birds during the Middle Ages were considered a delicacy and only those of social status could hunt them and eat them. It is known that the English swan was roasted and reddressed in his plumage for banquets just as the peacock. As the hoopoe only went to the high table or "above the salt," it can be assumed that a few hoopoes could have been redressed just as pretty fried canaries must have been. These meats were served as entremets. Villena said small birds should be quartered prior to eating. Today the canary is eaten whole if one is so lucky to catch one! [ES: G. Sevilla Sep 24, 2010; Ibn Zuhr. 1992:124; and Villena/Brown. 1984:84:54:92:196]
	Thanks to all your wonderful picking and plucking me, I am editing daily. Please stay tuned to: http://spanishfoodma.blogspot.com/2010/10/abubilla.html
No one objects to my insert on chicory?
  :-)
Suey