Clearly this is a medieval festive food and only for the incredibly important diner. Essentially the bird was baked or even turned into a pie. Then the tail would be reattached – on occasion the whole skin with feathers would be saved and the cooked bird reinserted – it was a statement meal but records suggest it wasn’t always very edible ( Adamson – Food in Medieval Times). And quite frankly draping an uncooked skin over a baked meat sounds like an invitation to the worst kind of food poisoning.
If you’d care for more detail please see the following fifteenth century recipe:http://www.godecookery.com/pepys/pepys26.htm
Adamson, Melitta. (2004) Food in Medieval Times.
How odd.
I had never heard of this practice until about a week ago when it was mentioned in some cookery programme I was watching on the BBC iPlayer. Don’t ask me which one, it might have been the Hairy Bikers.
Whoever it was only mentioned reattaching the feathers so I assumed the skin was cooked as per a turkey and the feathers stuck back into the flesh some way but draping the raw skin on a cooked bird sounds like listeria on a plate (more probably a silver platter) to me. Interesting post.
It does sound a bit grim not to mention a recipe for bumping off the odd courtier.