Not so long ago, recipes for thrush, skylark, lapwing, blackbird, corncrake, snipe, tick and other small fry were quite common.
The village elders from Zondereigen (Baarle Hertog) say that they ever snared birds for sale to the citizenry. A thrush fetched one franc, a blackbird 0.5 francs, a jay 0.25 francs and for a wood pigeon, one even gave five francs.

“I also can cook” (edited by the HMSJ Holl, 1911) loves the same birds. Such as thrush, "Her flesh is fine taste and very sought after. Besides the mentioned thrush (gin thrush) are still the ring-, the singing- and the gray thrush, and the starling and different types of blackbird, caught as thrushes and sold. Since the birds are very small, not worth the effort to shoot them unless they can get some at a great distance with the chamber rifle."

Behavioral Biologist Erwin Ripmeester of Leiden University sees (01/2010) a difference in blackbirds: DNA, song (higher, harder and longer), physique (heavier, shorter legs and beak) and behavior of the city blackbird have changed with respect to the bush blackbird. (Sometimes called black thrush.)

spreeuwenpotA starling pot is a kind of earthen jug, with the spout horizontally to the front, hung with their side or back against the wall. Under the opening was a comfortable perch. From behind a door as robber hole.

Starling Pots are depicted on plaques, paintings and even in literature.
Jacob Cats, in his poem "Galathea ofte Harders Minne-klachte " (Galathea or Harders love-complaint)

the function of the starling pot again:

With a net, with a bow,
With an owl on a cherry,
with a bow, with a tube,
the starling pot(!) to the house,
With the stroke, or mistletoe,
on the dunghill, in the rhyme,
With a little spice and lots,
Captures one small and large birds

With the starling pot thus one caught birds. Starlings are cavity nesting. The housing got
an entry with a diameter of 26 to 45 mm, a long neck, and a large nesting room.
Jacob Cats warns to harvest in time:


And I speak not only of the fruit,
My teachingis generally:
Has someone pigeons on the shed,
Or starlings in a bird-pot,
He shall surely, with all diligence,
Adapt to the swift time,
For if he make sit some long,
To consider the fast youth come,
He will surely at last,
Not find, as the empty nest;
And, behold, then it'stoo late sighing,
The birds spin in the air.


Romans loved stuffed thrushes. They filled the thrush in his throat, without removing the intestines. The Romans ate more birds that are no longer on our menu, such as herring gulls, jackdaws, crows, ravens, swans, coots, storks and peacocks.

Father Alexandre Dumas lived from 1802-1870 and was a French dramatist and writer of historical novels. Known of him: ‘The Three Musketeers’ and ‘The Count of Monte Cristo'.
In his "Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine" (The largekitchendictionary) are also thrush recipes (and elephant leg...).

Recipe for thrush Giuseppe Alessi Terraditoscane, cucina Alessi, (kitchen Alessi, Italy)

Tordi arrosta con la ‘salvia culo' (Roastthrusheswith ‘sage leaf’)

8 thick thrushes, evisceration, 4 tablespoons (tbsp) olive oil 6 tbsp walnut oil, 8 sage leaves, salt and pepper, mixed (meat) herbs, ¼ l white wine

Herb puree: 8 cloves garlic, 10 juniper berries, rosemary leaves of two branches, the leaves of a bush sage, 12 pitted olives, 4 tablespoons olive oil

Mix 4 tablespoons of salt, 1 tbsp salt and 1 tbsp mixed herbs into a homogeneous mixture. Puree the mixture of juniper, garlic, rosemary, sage, olives and olive oil in a food processor.

Rub the thrushes, both inside and outside with salt, pepper and mixed meat herbs. Rub evenly inside and out with the herb puree. Put a sage leaf (“Salvia culo") into the abdomen of each thrush and place on a serving dish. Cover with olive oil and cover the pan. Put in the refrigerator overnight.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Put the thrushes side by side in a baking dish and baste them with the oil mixed with the moisture that has formed in that night. Baste them then with walnut oil, cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes in the oven. By the end of the cooking time, remove the foil, add the wine and let the moisture evaporate for five minutes. Put the oven off, but leave the thrush a few minutes in the oven to bring boiling temperature of the inside and outside at the same level. Remove the thrushes from oven and serve with a mixed salad with a vinaigrette of extra virgin olive oil and vinegar.

‘The skilled Kitchen Maid, New Citizen Cookbook’ (edited by Johanna Rijneman, 1909) calculates four thrushes per person.

The Belgian Jef Soen says in his Great Kitchen Book: thrushes and blackbirds fried: "One plucks them but do not eviscerate, cleans them except the head. They wrapped them with vine leaves. " Ortolan: "Frying them without eviscerate, they wrapped them with bacon, roast while you pour them a little with melted lard and it serves them with a little juice of unripe grapes."
About larks "They fry them in one casserole. It puts them in the melted butter and stir them among themselves, after having them sprinkled with salt and pepper. It puts them in the oven and serve them with youth, which can detach by means of broth casserole. They can also roast in the casserole wrapped in bacon slices."