As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Wednesday 16 October 2013

Boil in the bag pigeon is a hit on C wing

It’s a recipe that might have Delia, Jamie and Gordon in a flap.

But in a novel twist on ‘doing bird’, a prisoner appears to have shared his tip for stomaching grub behind bars – boil-in-the-bag pigeon.

A lag calling himself J McLaughlin claims the recipe is a favourite at HMP Wymott, a Category C jail in Lancashire that holds 1,140 inmates.

In prison magazine Inside Time, he writes the recipe was ‘first derived by a prisoner who, like most of us, couldn’t stomach the slop served up in lieu of food in prison’.

Convicts are advised to leave some breadcrumbs on the windowsill of their cell, and tie a piece of string to the handle of the open window.

Once a pigeon is attracted, the prisoner slams the window, stuns the bird and wrings its neck.

It is then plucked, its breasts cut out with a prison razor and boiled in a kettle using a sealable bag from a brew pack.

McLaughlin advises adding butter, salt and pepper with chopped chillies.

‘Boiled or roast potatoes left over from prison-issue meals can be cooked in the same way,’ he adds.

One insider said: ‘This guy’s recipe is the talk of the prison. Everyone reads Inside Time and quite a few are joking about giving it a shot – I pity any pigeon which strays into the wrong place.’

The Prison Service ‘had no record’ of pigeons being cooked by inmates.

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