The hunters’ cuisine: partridges, woodcocks and thrushes

The coldest months of autumn and winter: November, December and January were those in which one of the main protagonists of the traditional cuisine on our island were game birds and with them what we could call the hunters’ cuisine. , where in addition to the feathered animals, mushrooms played an important role and with them dishes such as rice with thrushes and chanterelles or chanterelles, soupy meat rice, and also many game dishes where thrushes, quail, partridges, Wood pigeons, wild pigeons, turtledoves, starlings and woodcocks were the main protagonists, as well as waterfowl such as the green-necked duck, the whistler and coots among others.

The partridges

The partridge is one of the most valued species in Menorca by hunters and also one of the great protagonists of its cuisine.

They can be hunted with a shotgun from September 30 to January 27, while from December 18 to January 27, hunting with a male lure is allowed, one of the most appreciated by shoemakers, who had their male partridges and their claims to attract the “victims” who, once plucked and gutted, would become part of the casseroles and stews. There is also a third modality for hunting partridge, that which is done with shade, allowed between December 20 and January 29.

Old Menorcan cuisine gives us pleasures such as partridges with cabbage, wrapped with their vegetable atillos and accompanied by a little fresh and sautéed bacon; rice with partridges, which was one of the hunters’ favorites, as well as different stews in which the queen of small game is the undisputed protagonist. Other dishes from our ancient cuisine are Menorcan-style partridges, partridges with salmí, partridges a la mosona, macaroni with partridge, in addition to being part of puff pastry cakes and pastelones, which were the main protagonists of the banquets of the noble houses of the old Menorcan capital.

The Woodcocks

Another of the queens of this hunter’s cuisine is the woodcock that arrives to our islands when it is colder and is one of the most precious gastronomic treasures for lovers of good food.

Woodcocks are hunted with a shotgun mainly in the months of December and January, until just after Saint Anthony’s Day, and for the Menorcans the most prized way to eat them is boneless in a bun. One of the ancestral dishes of this hunter’s cuisine, which could still be found in many restaurants on the island until the fateful Chernobyl nuclear accident occurred in the 1980s, which prohibited the marketing of meat from birds that came from from northern Europe, such as woodcocks and thrushes.

The cóc amb cega (roll stuffed with woodcock) is, as we have said, one of the great pleasures of Menorcan cuisine, and also one of the most laborious, because not only do you have to know how to cook the poultry meat just right, but you have to make it very clean of bones, and then fill the cocs or rolls. Experts say that the main secret of this dish is that the animal’s intestines must be incorporated, which must be melted with the resulting sauce.

At the end of last year, a group of friends who like good food were able to enjoy a coc amb cega masterfully cooked by Miquel Mariano and his wife Margarita, in Es Mercadal.

A real pleasure for the gastronomic senses and at the same time being able to enjoy one of the most appreciated recipes of the hunters’ cuisine in Menorca and which, thanks to Miquel and Margarita, is still preserved, like many other dishes that are roots of our local cuisine and the gastronomic memory of Menorca.

The thrushes

Thrushes are another of the protagonists of hunters’ cuisine, and are hunted with a shotgun or with yarn on our island. They are also animals of passage, which arrive with the cold and how partridges and woodcocks give us a good number of dishes from Menorcan cuisine that range from thrushes inside a bun -similar to woodcocks-, to thrush rice. with mushrooms that are sublime, to stately cuisine preparations such as thrushes with sour pomegranate sauce, thrushes with old-fashioned sauce, clay casserole with sobrasada, with salmí and other preparations such as the houses of chefs who love the hunters’ kitchen.