[Sca-cooks] bustard

[Susanne Mayer]

Beg to differ, but there is a colony in Austria (albeit on the 
Neusiedlersee, a big steppe lake on both sides of the Austrian and Hungarian 
border, but definitely on our side of the lake. I have seen them for my 
self, they live in the  National park Neusiedlersee

http://www.nationalpark-neusiedlersee-seewinkel.at/en/index.html

And they are almost extinct even here in a protected habitat they are very 
rare

http://www.grosstrappen.de/trappe/trappe_verbreitung_at.htm


Greetings from a patriotic ;-)

Katharina

> Message: 8
> Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2011 19:34:39 -0600
> From: "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at att.net>
> To: "Cooks within the SCA" <sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org>
> Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Game for Your Feast
> Message-ID: <0F4BAFD8BEB94EF1A3BE2C9F1686CB54 at TerryPC>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> reply-type=original
>
> You're looking at the present range, not what their range was pre-1600. 
> The
> great bustard's European range extended from England across Southern 
> Europe
> and into Central and Northern Europe.  They are extinct in England, 
> Sweden,
> Switzerland and Poland.  There is still a breeding population in Russia 
> and
> Hungary.  It was more common than you assume.
>
> Almost all other large birds were taken by hunting, while turkeys, like
> geese, chickens and guinea fowl could be farm raised.  Besides tasting
> better than other large birds, turkeys cost less.  For Catherine de 
> Medici's
> feast of 1549, turkey hens cost 20 sols, turkey cocks cost 30 sols, 
> bustards
> cost 70 sols, and swans cost 100 sols.  The sol or sou is 1/20 of a livre.
>
> Bear
>
>
>> Yes, sorry, I think I am. My apologies. That's one of the reasons for the
>> Florilegium, to augment my sometimes poor memory. I wasn't sure if they
>> were extinct or not, but this article says they aren't extinct, but
>> endangered, like so many other creatures. It also shows another reason 
>> for
>> the turkey to have quickly replaced them. The bustard's area covers only 
>> a
>> small area of Europe, mostly the Iberian peninsula, so even assuming a
>> larger area in medieval times, it probably wasn't that common. So
>> domesticated turkeys would have easily become more common.
>>
>> It also sounds like a domesticated turkey would be much easier to raise
>> than swans or geese or other large birds.
>>
>> Stefan
>