A Song of Six Pence...

Sing a song of six pence, a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie,
When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing,
Wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king?


I always thought this was a nonsense poem, such as Humpty Dumpty. Like a multitude of similar times, I was wrong. The pioneer mother of Laura Ingalls Wilder (of Little House on the Prairie fame), baked blackbird pie and served it partly in self defense, and partly because of revenge, because the pesky blackbirds were eating everything in their corn patch -– the corn which they
depended on dried, to sustain them during the coming winter.

If you ever find yourself in this predicament, here is the recipe for blackbird pie:
12 starlings, plucked and dressed
1 medium yellow onion
2 whole cloves
2 T browned flour
Salt and pepper
Sour milk biscuit dough

Cut the cleaned birds in half along breastbone and backbone. Put birds, giblets, onion and cloves in a saucepan with 2 cups of water and simmer covered about 2 hours until tender. Preheat oven to 400F. Remove starlings from broth and place in baking dish. Discard onion and cloves. Stir browned flour into broth, season with salt and pepper, add to starlings and cover with biscuit
dough. Bake for 10 minutes, lower heat to 350F and bake 10 minutes more, or until crust is cooked through. (Barbara M. Walker, The Little House Cookbook)

It gets us back to the “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without” philosophy that was so life-saving during the Depression days, or in other hard times. I’m not suggesting that today’s homemakers go out and trap sparrows and eat them -– not much meat there -– but cheaper cuts of meat, braised into
exquisite tenderness, day-old bread, toasted, or home gardens, all come to mind, as well as refurbishing yesterday’s apparel, taking fewer auto trips, saving change, and “doing without” to make the paycheck last until the next one arrives …that’s due diligence.

Of course there is more than one way “to skin a cat,” as evidenced by that pile of naked felines outside my cabin door. It’s just an idea. Run with it, or not.

P. S. Ask me for my recipe for Haggis...you will need a sheep’s stomach.