18 ms·

We don't eat swans

113 points by drjohnson 12y ago

darklajid 12y ago
That article is .. devoid of new information. It claims that we don't eat swans (maybe? probably? I certainly never did.) but fails to provide even a hint of an answer. Unless I miss a hidden link for a page 2 or 3 that is a very long "So we don't eat a big bird, think about it", which is .. thought provoking if you're feeling nice, lacking content if you're not. Jumping between vastly different regions doesn't help either ("Swans are the property of the crown in the UK, but a pest in Michigan." What??).
- deleted 12y ago
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- dang 12y ago
  Perhaps not new to you, but I learned much from the article. I didn't know that swans are crown property in England [1], that only the royal family and the fellows of St. John’s College of Cambridge (!) are allowed to eat them, or that they have become pests in Michigan (which of course is relevant; the post is not about a region, but about swans). I didn't even realize that there was a taboo against eating swans, though it seems obvious now. 1. The article contains an interesting link to "An Act Concerning Swans" (1482): http://www.theswansanctuary.org.uk/images/an%20act%20concerning%20swans.jpg http://www.theswansanctuary.org.uk/images/an%20act%20concern...
  - darklajid 12y ago
    Hey. I certainly don't want to ruin that article for you. For me (German, haven't left the country except for random vacations to France, NL, CH, IT or something and a year in IL) that was well-known. I've been in the UK once, in London, for two days. Guess that's a matter of which trivia based games you play or something.. ;-) Michigan: No idea about that, that WAS news to me. But the article is about "Why don't we eat swans" and the Michigan part is really a bad example. So ... it's a pest? No hunting season though? And no explanation? Frankly, I like swans. I regularly met and fed a couple of swans in Cologne in Germany here, checking on the young ones if the season was right. I'd love to eat them though. The article, for me at least, fails to deliver at least a hint of an answer to the question it proposed. That's just a bad format for me. If your main subject is a question, you need to at least try to answer it (and "yeah, they might be cute" isn't it).
    - jeffbr13 12y ago
      Ducks, also, are both friendly and delicious.
      - prawn 12y ago
        And cute. Yet many of us (myself included) quite happily eat them.
    - calibwam 12y ago
      What I got from it, while not a conclusive answer, was that because of the historical ban for anyone but the royal to eat swan, there is no tradition anywhere in the western world for it. Also people don't like to eat "cute" animals, like seals or squirrels. And lastly, when something is classified as a pest, people don't want to think of it on their dining room table. While the article doesn't explicitly say the exact reason why, I think these were the main points. So I guess that is badly formatting on the article writers side.
      - darklajid 12y ago
        But the premise is already weird. Who is "We" as in "Why don't we eat swans"? And who considers swans 'cute'? I mean, I consider cats cute, lots of people consider dogs cute - and both animals are eaten in this world. Better example: Horses are cherished as companions and pets for some people and I _regularly_ like to eat them. There's even a dish local to the Rhine area in Germany [1] that (used to, it is replaced by beef quite often by now) is based on horse meat. People tend to love dolphins. Asian cultures eat them. "They are cute" is not an argument here. That might explain a bias, but not why there's (according to the article) no swan to be found on any menu? 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauerbraten http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauerbraten
        dalke 12y ago
        "We" would presumably be the types of people who read the magazine. According to the about, that would be: "window-herb growers, career farmers, people who have chickens, people who want to have chickens and anyone who wants to know more about how food reaches their plate" and given the staff members are all US oriented, it's most likely assuming a US readership and US food culture. Thus we, who are random fly-by strangers to the magazine, shouldn't really criticize harshly when they don't take an unexpected audience into account.
  - ChuckMcM 12y ago
    There was also an interesting link about why we should consider eating invasive (non-native) species. Personally I think the Canadian Geese around Oracle HQ in Redwood City could use a good thinning.
    - suyash 12y ago
      Personally I think the Canadian Geese around Oracle HQ in Redwood City could use a good thinning. - Why? You don't like animals chilling out in a protected area.
      - ChuckMcM 12y ago
        No, because they cause economic harm. Both in damage to aircraft coming into and out of San Mateo airport, damage to cars which are involved in goose related accidents, damage to property in the form of plant destruction and defecation. Without natural predators they have become a nuisance.
        sjwright 12y ago
        Much like kangaroos in rural Australia. With fewer predators and enormous amounts of native bushland cleared for farming, they have multiplied to the point that they've become a pest. Fortunately, the meat is pretty tasty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_meat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_meat
        seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        I tried kangaroo in Switzerland the last time I visited EPFL; the cafeterias there serve all sorts of weird stuff, like horse... I didn't like it, it tasted a lot like rabbit to me, and sourness in a meat is just weird to me.
        eshvk 12y ago
        > I didn't like it, it tasted a lot like rabbit to me, and sourness in a meat is just weird to me. Odd. I have had both Rabbit and Kangaroo. Both were lean flavorful, the Kangaroo more close to a lean beef than anything. But I wouldn't associate "sour" with both meats. Could you have sampled a bad batch?
  - christudor 12y ago
    There once was a man from St John's Who coveted one of the swans, "Oh no" said the Porter, Please take my daughter, The swans are reserved for the dons.
- gweinberg 12y ago
  I felt the same way. It asks "why don't we eat swans any more?" but as far as I can tell in the US we never did, and in fact the closest thing to an answer is just that we never got in the habit. I get the impression the excess swan problem in Michigan is a recent thing, probably a result of a decline of some swaniferous predator.
  - jqm 12y ago
    LOL@swaniferous predator. Maybe they could introduce cold hardy alligators to Michigan? But then there would be two problems....
  - qbrass 12y ago
    People buy them as a pond decoration, then turn them loose when they become aggressive as adults.
  - taejo 12y ago
    swaniferous (swan-bearing) =/= swanivorous (swan-eating).
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Ironic: HN folks quibbling about a bad article title.
  - lotsofcows 12y ago
    Heaven forfend the article could be addressed to mankind! Obviously it was addressed to USAians and was given an odd title by mistake. That's definitely the intuitive, obvious, straight-forward possiblity.
- Zigurd 12y ago
  As long as it doesn't mention domestic surveillance or the iffy state of an economy propped up on QE, it's a perfectly cromulent HN topic.
- ebbv 12y ago
  Yep, this article is a completely content free fluff piece which can be summarized thusly: "We don't eat swans. They are a pest in michigan. Why don't people eat swan?" That is not an article it's something you'd say at a party while drunk and everyone would look at you funny.
withdavidli 12y ago
Answer right in the article. "too cute to eat".
- Falling3 12y ago
  That doesn't typically stop us. Cows (especially young ones) are incredibly cute. Lamb are the quintessence of cuteness. Rabbits are cute as well.
- gajomi 12y ago
  The author insists on this, and I guess it is true that this notion is promoted by popular culture. But to me it just seems insane. Have these people ever seen a swan? I mean, whenever I get close to one it is readily apparent that I am dealing with some outgrown aggressive river-beast. The only thing keeping it from biting my head off would seem to be a couple factors of two missing in the volume, which a few thousand years of evolution might have an easy solution to. I see very little cute in swans...
  - the_af 12y ago
    Agreed. A swan is no cuter than a duck, which is a common dish in many menus. Also, we eat a lot of animals which could be considered "cute". A little lamb, for example, or a piglet. So cuteness can't be the answer.
    - withdavidli 12y ago
      Ducks are still failry rare to be on menus depending on the culture of a restaurant. Some of my friends are still surprised I eat them. I originally omitted in my comment about thoughts of dogs, cats, and bunnies being taboo as meals in the US. It probably has a lot to do with not only perceived cuteness, but then we have a tendency to make cute things pets, and then they become "part of the family". You don't usually see piglets or lambs as options in the pet store.
      - the_af 12y ago
ArkyBeagle 12y ago
In the past, the upper class in England would eat swans.
kefka 12y ago
Because they do not sell it at the market. Ive found all sorts of meat (22 types from my specialty butcher), yet swan isn't there. Perhaps it's "too beautiful" to eat, or perhaps it has a more visceral "horse meat" kind of feeling to it. I don't know. And the article is lacking in detail. So, the answer is "it's not sold".
- jqm 12y ago
  But this leads to the question of "why don't they sell it at the market"? And the answer to that might be because people wouldn't buy it. Or if they did, only once because it tastes like an old glove that was left in the parrot cage.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    The one quote in the article about the taste was positive...
    - jqm 12y ago
      Somebody else said similar but I'm not convinced. I went back and looked and the guy was a professional chef. And probably some sort of esoteric gourmet of the kind that might drink civet poop coffee. I have to believe if swans were really good people would have started eating them in large numbers a long time ago and they would commercially raise them.
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        Batali may have weird tastes, maybe (though he's a pretty mainstream food personality not particularly known for crazy stuff), but it remains the case that we have one piece of testimony that it's tasty and none that it isn't. The fact that we don't eat them is arguably some evidence that they aren't but there are other potential explanations for that, so drawing that conclusion seems shakey.
        jqm 12y ago
dvfurlong 12y ago
Because the Queen owns them all except St John's Oxford swans who have permission
- graeme 12y ago
  This is true in the UK. Here's the source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John's_College,_Cambridge#Eating_Swan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John's_College,_Cambridge#Ea... I have no doubt this influence culinary attitudes in all of England's former colonies as well.
- waterfowl 12y ago
  SJC is at Cambridge
  - 001sky 12y ago
    a number of the college names overlap both place, including st johns , but only cambridge-resident fellows can have "unmarked" swan. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John%27s_College,_Oxford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John%27s_College,_Oxford)
- oh_sigh 12y ago
  Wrong. The queen of england can only lay claim to swans that are in England, and even at that, she only has claim to the "unmarked mute swans in open water".
dang 12y ago
We changed the title (from "Why don't we eat swans?") in an attempt to ward off bikeshed arguments about it.
waterfowl 12y ago
Swans are kind of assholes in my experience and the "mute swan"(the one most people think of) has become a massive pest among the fisheries/parks/etc crowd. I'm generally a pretty adventurous cook/eater and did a goose for christmas last year(geese are a hella pest but somehow the dead one I bought was $70 or something) and probably wouldn't do a swan if it's similar. Geese are almost "beefy"
- jeffbr13 12y ago
  Yep, goose is quite a dark meat, and is easily overcooked to dryness. But potatoes (or anything) roasted in goose-fat should be the highlight of anyone's christmas dinner!
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    Agreed. Goose is all about the goose fat.
  - ryanbrunner 12y ago
    If swan is anything like goose (which I can only imagine it is), it's probably too fussy for the average home meal anyways. Goose can be delicious, but it's not something you'd cook outside of an occasion like Christmas.
- nerfhammer 12y ago
  A lot of people don't realize the Mute Swan is an invasive species to North America http://www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/inv_spp_summ/Cygnus_olor.html#Introduction_Facts http://www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/in...
- selimthegrim 12y ago
  Larry David has already come to this realization publicly. http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/curb-your-enthusiasm-the-black-swan-34830 http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/curb-your-enthusiasm-the-black-...
- arrrg 12y ago
  Are geese adventurous? Where I’m from (north-eastern Bavaria) roasted goose breast with potato dumplings are a a common Sunday dinner meal (duck breast is less common, at least in restaurants, but my grandparents and parents often made it). Pork is obviously the standard thing to roast and consequently more common overall, but I would argue that at least where I’m from this roasted geese breast is a bigger deal than chicken based meals. Especially if it’s a Sunday dinner. Goose is also popular for Christmas, turkey not really. Actually, goose is probably the thing to make for Christmas where I’m from. Goose is obviously not chicken or turkey, but I really love it with very fatty gravy, a crispy, salty crust, and quite dry meat. I love fried chicken, too, I think everyone does, plus turkey, but that’s not what I’m looking for when eating roasted goose breast.
saregama 12y ago
Humans eating habits should evolve ! Go Vegetarian !
- saregama 12y ago
  Ok. Ok.. Suit yourself :)
vernie 12y ago
I'd eat swan. Somebody cook it up for me.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  Buy it and come over, I'll cook it.
- 31reasons 12y ago
  I would eat swan just to prove a point that its not fair for chickens just because of the looks.
jqm 12y ago
The article doesn't provide the most likely answer... Because they don't taste very good.
- the_af 12y ago
  The article quotes an opinion saying they are delicious: “We once ate a swan at Christmas nine or ten years ago,” [chef Mario Batali] told Esquire. “It was delicious — deep red, lean, lightly gamey, moist, and succulent… but I’ve never seen swan on a market list.”
  - jqm 12y ago
    I missed that. But "lightly gamey" doesn't sound very good to me. I cooked a goose once out of curiosity. As another poster mentions it was very expensive. And, it wasn't very good. An $8 chicken beat it hands down. If swans were really tasty they would have probably been commercially farmed a long time ago. So I have to believe they really don't.... taste very good. Queen of England aside, there are plenty of other countries that would have raised them commercially.
    - the_af 12y ago
      Game is a taste not all people like, but this is not about individual preference. A lot of people eat game. Wild boar, wild duck, deer, and many other "gamey" meats are enjoyed in many countries. Why not swan? Especially if, as the quoted chef claims, it's only lightly gamey.
      - jqm 12y ago
        Not to beat a useless discussion to death but I really think you answered your own question... Why not swan when they eat boar, ducks and deer? I see one and only one very obvious answer. And I'm sticking with it... downvotes be damned!
    - eshvk 12y ago
      I have eaten quite a few gamey animals in my life (Gator, Yak, Goat, Bison, Kangaroo and Ostrich). The flavor is something that I find enjoyable. Probably because where I grew up, the beef didn't taste the way it does here. Also, $8 chicken is very different from a well cooked $40 goose. Having said this as reasons why expense and gameyness are not a discouragement to some people. I would think that the lack of commercial farming is probably a startup idea in waiting. :)
suyash 12y ago
What kind of discussions are propping up to #3 on HN front page. There is more general topic discussion than Hacker related discussion (btw I meant hacker in the good sense)
- Russell91 12y ago
  The problem is that ppl like you and me can't downvote. Voting systems without downvotes take the expectation of the half-rectified utility across the readership, not the regular utility. So ridiculous articles like this one can survive in spite of having negative true utility. Also, more sensational articles are naturally at an advantage (expectation scales linearly with standard deviation on half-rectified functions). Just one way of thinking about it.
- jqm 12y ago
  I personally love novel and lighthearted articles. Particularly on Friday afternoon when I don't feel like doing much.
- dang 12y ago
  Please reread the Hacker News guidelines. Any articles that gratify intellectual curiosity are on topic. This article may be a bit fluffy, but it fits the bill.
  - hmsimha 12y ago
    > This article may be a bit fluffy, but it fits the bill. I don't even know whether this was intentional, which makes it the best kind of wordplay
nogodo 12y ago
We shot a swan for the sole purpose of eating it. It was lovely and served a large number of people (apx 8) with plenty of leftovers. This was in a country where they are protected but are a pest and are in large numbers locally. Protected largely for historical reasons (the Queen). In future I would (will) use the pressure cooker however.
mmcclure 12y ago
Kinda off topic, but did anyone catch the comments from "Terrence Andrew Davis"? Google this guy...can't figure out if he's a real, mentally unstable human or a random text generator, but supposedly he wrote an os: http://templeos.org http://templeos.org. Uh...and Swans and stuff...
- danford 12y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOSV2 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOSV2 Probably him. Or some guy with a lot of time on his hands pretending to be him.
- icebraining 12y ago
  http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/software-engineer/templeos-an-educational-tool-for-programming-experiments/ http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/software-engineer/templeos-...
- RommeDeSerieux 12y ago
  This reminds me to log in more often.
johnvschmitt 12y ago
Since the article was short on answers, here's one possible answer as to "why we don't eat swans": Their numbers are too small to get into volume "manufacturing" (CAFO's). 15,000 swans. That's cute. We harvest 10,000 kiloTonnes of cattle per year in the USA alone. That means, our CAFO'S produce about 2 million pounds of beef for every 1 swan we could harvest. Our food system loves repeatable processes & volume efficiencies that wild game can't provide. Note: I may be nearly vegetarian, & eat only local organic meat rarely. But, the facts of CAFO's dominate the market.
- jqm 12y ago
  If they were really that good they would raise them like turkeys. My guess is that royalty ate them initially largely because they looked regal. The fact that they redressed them with the feathers before serving lends further credence to this idea. Geese are pretty awful to eat.. particularly wild geese from what my brother in law says. Swans are probably even worse.
  - dllthomas 12y ago
    We'll agree to disagree about geese, I guess.
    - jqm 12y ago
      I probably didn't cook it right. But my experience with goose was not very good.
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        Certainly possible, or maybe our tastes just differ.
- nraynaud 12y ago
  let's talk about Safran, of US made foie gras, or kangaroo. I don't believe in your explanation.
jasonlaramburu 12y ago
What about black swans lol?
geoffc 12y ago
Same problem with the seals in New England. They are cute and protected and exploding in population with negative effects on the fish stock. Canada restarted seal hunting to protect the cod fishery and it's working for them.
- krisgee 12y ago
  >and it's working for them. Yeah, against massive international outcry from people who don't live here and don't understand that fisheries is literally the only job left.
jliptzin 12y ago
"others preferred to stuff the bird with a series of increasingly smaller birds" Dynamic eating!
- jqm 12y ago
  I found that comment actually amusing. I would upvote it to counter whoever downvoted it but not enough karma.
  - jqm 12y ago
    I guess some people have not been exposed to dynamic programming?
    - jliptzin 12y ago
      I suppose not
ratsbane 12y ago
Reminds me of Porterhouse Blue, the 1970s satirical novel about life in the fictitious Porterhouse college at Cambridge, where swans were served at massive feasts and "porterhouse blue" became another name for a stroke caused by excessive consumption: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porterhouse_Blue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porterhouse_Blue
- TimFogarty 12y ago
  On a related note, fellows of St John's Cambridge are the only people outside the Royal Family allowed to eat unmarked mute swans in the UK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John's_College,_Cambridge#Eating_Swan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John's_College,_Cambridge#Ea...
Zigurd 12y ago
For one thing, you'll need a larger than normal oven. The largest turkeys at the neighborhood turkey farm are about 30 lbs., the size of a small swan, and, while you might be able to physically stuff a bird that big into a newer oven that has maximal cooking volume, it won't cook very well. Turkeys are lean, but if you tried to roast a swan, your roasting pan might overflow with fat and if that catches fire it will burn like a gallon of liquefied paraffin. That's a pretty good way to burn down the house.
- Pxtl 12y ago
  I didn't realize they were that large up-close. The obvious implication of that fact: Swanturducken.
Rizz 12y ago
There are a few swan farms in The Netherlands, where swans are grown for consumption. They are considered a delicacy in several European countries, but they don't taste as good as duck or geese in my opinion. Some years ago there were a few incidences of Eastern European migrants taking wild swans for food, including some from protected species.
phormat 12y ago
Maybe swan is the decidedly-not-pork mystery meat that chinese food serves me in their 'special' fried rice? Anyone know what im talking about.. Smokey smell, looks like a fowl in its cooked form.
callumprentice 12y ago
Our local yakitori joint serves swan and lion - http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/05/17/burlingame-restaurant-offers-lion-meat-amid-controversy/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/05/17/burlingame-resta...
vj44 12y ago
My grandfather told my that during the WW2 occupation, fisherman occasionally used to catch & eat swans. Even during the war, the meat was not socially accepted for human consumption (ie. in western culture would consider it on par with "dog meat"), thus not very popular.
- paganel 12y ago
  > Even during the war, the meat was not socially accepted for human consumption For what it's worth, it was a huge scandal in the early 1990s in my country when it was rumored that members of our local gipsy community had eaten swans after they had just arrived in Vienna. It stuck along as a stereotype for at least a decade, if not more. As for the reference, the best I could find was this: http://books.google.ro/books?id=gHKm95EweOwC&pg=PT272&lpg=PT272&dq=eating+swans+vienna+gypsies&source=bl&ots=F1IMlgVdYa&sig=HITnDa4Ra1SdJEQBbxHDPqD7Olw&hl=ro&sa=X&ei=Ld9tU6rjL4mN7Qb1lYHIDQ&ved=0CEcQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=eating%20swans%20vienna%20gypsies&f=false http://books.google.ro/books?id=gHKm95EweOwC&pg=PT272&lpg=PT... , but there was also a Sun story from 2008 about "Eastern" immigrants having eaten swans.
ianbicking 12y ago
"In Michigan, however, which has the highest population of mute swans in North America, the creatures are considered pests. According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the statewide breeding population increased from about 5,700 to more than 15,000 in just ten years. The birds attack people in the water and on shore, particularly children that wander too close to their nests." Sometimes when I get excited that an animal population gets to the point of potentially excess, I have to remind myself that it might be that we've adapted our lives to the absence of the animal and can't tolerate its presence even in modest amounts. Yes, swans are aggressive, but just because they are annoying doesn't mean they are overpopulated. Or concerns that some wild cats might take dogs. That sucks for the dog owner if it happens, but is it really okay to have the expectation that your animal can be in nature without any natural repercussions? That said, once swans become common we shouldn't be afraid to push back against their aggressiveness. Nature does have away to balance behavior, and if humans think they just have to put up with asshole swans or else kill the swans I think we're missing out on some obvious behavior correction opportunities.
- SoftwareMaven 12y ago
  If that aggressiveness comes at the cost of other species, especially after humans either artificially introduced them or eliminated their natural predators, it is our responsibility to protect those other species. Conservation doesn't mean every individual of every species gets to live.
- jqm 12y ago
  An alternative to killing and eating swans to deal with overpopulation might be to catch them early. Swan Egg Omelet anyone?
dsirijus 12y ago
I've always wondered - when synthetic meat becomes economically viable, and animal rights come even closer to human, will we end up in much greater need systematically controlling most animal populations? What are we going to do with all those caracases? Feed the poor?
merrua 12y ago
In many of the celtic nations it's for cultural reasons. They are an animal people turn into in myth and "sacred" through custom. No reason however why they are not eaten in countries where they are not native.
sbirchall 12y ago
You know the best eggs in the world? Seagull Eggs. The harvesting of them from the wild is highly protected and I've only ever met a few old boys who used to poach them but I've read a few places (wild cookery and survival books) that the finest omelette you can make is one made from shite-hawk eggs. Guess that's an easier taboo to explain, though. I've had swan and goose and find them both perfectly acceptable meat. The best way I've found so far is to salt cure the breast like pastrami - as the meat is so dark it's very much like a salt cured beef. Very tasty.
joeevans1000 12y ago
the author shows their bias and agenda with the ridiculous claim: "The birds attack people in the water and on shore, particularly children that wander too close to their nests." absurd.
michaelfeathers 12y ago
Maybe the answer is rebranding. Dolphin fish are named 'Mahi-Mahi' on menus to disambiguate them from the mammals.
plugger 12y ago
People do hunt and eat swans. I'm from North Carolina and have a lifetime sportsman license there. Each year I can apply for two swan tags, I believe the cost is something like $5-$15 for the tags. What this article doesn't explain is that swan meat isn't actually very good. Goose is better, but duck is the best (in my opinion). Goose is more gamey, tough, and has less meat than a duck. Swan is even more gamey than goose. I suspect if the author spent more time investigating the "old boys network" he would have realized that hunting and consumption of swan does exist in the US today. Even a simple "hunting swan in america" google search turns up a useful information. Have a look at the aptly named swanhunting.com if you want more info.

113 points by drjohnson 12y ago

That article is .. devoid of new information. It claims that we don't eat swans (maybe? probably? I certainly never did.) but fails to provide even a hint of an answer. Unless I miss a hidden link for a page 2 or 3 that is a very long "So we don't eat a big bird, think about it", which is .. thought provoking if you're feeling nice, lacking content if you're not. Jumping between vastly different regions doesn't help either ("Swans are the property of the crown in the UK, but a pest in Michigan." What??).

deleted 12y ago
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dang 12y ago
Perhaps not new to you, but I learned much from the article. I didn't know that swans are crown property in England [1], that only the royal family and the fellows of St. John’s College of Cambridge (!) are allowed to eat them, or that they have become pests in Michigan (which of course is relevant; the post is not about a region, but about swans). I didn't even realize that there was a taboo against eating swans, though it seems obvious now. 1. The article contains an interesting link to "An Act Concerning Swans" (1482): http://www.theswansanctuary.org.uk/images/an%20act%20concerning%20swans.jpg http://www.theswansanctuary.org.uk/images/an%20act%20concern...
- darklajid 12y ago
  Hey. I certainly don't want to ruin that article for you. For me (German, haven't left the country except for random vacations to France, NL, CH, IT or something and a year in IL) that was well-known. I've been in the UK once, in London, for two days. Guess that's a matter of which trivia based games you play or something.. ;-) Michigan: No idea about that, that WAS news to me. But the article is about "Why don't we eat swans" and the Michigan part is really a bad example. So ... it's a pest? No hunting season though? And no explanation? Frankly, I like swans. I regularly met and fed a couple of swans in Cologne in Germany here, checking on the young ones if the season was right. I'd love to eat them though. The article, for me at least, fails to deliver at least a hint of an answer to the question it proposed. That's just a bad format for me. If your main subject is a question, you need to at least try to answer it (and "yeah, they might be cute" isn't it).
  - jeffbr13 12y ago
    Ducks, also, are both friendly and delicious.
    - prawn 12y ago
      And cute. Yet many of us (myself included) quite happily eat them.
  - calibwam 12y ago
    What I got from it, while not a conclusive answer, was that because of the historical ban for anyone but the royal to eat swan, there is no tradition anywhere in the western world for it. Also people don't like to eat "cute" animals, like seals or squirrels. And lastly, when something is classified as a pest, people don't want to think of it on their dining room table. While the article doesn't explicitly say the exact reason why, I think these were the main points. So I guess that is badly formatting on the article writers side.
    - darklajid 12y ago
      But the premise is already weird. Who is "We" as in "Why don't we eat swans"? And who considers swans 'cute'? I mean, I consider cats cute, lots of people consider dogs cute - and both animals are eaten in this world. Better example: Horses are cherished as companions and pets for some people and I _regularly_ like to eat them. There's even a dish local to the Rhine area in Germany [1] that (used to, it is replaced by beef quite often by now) is based on horse meat. People tend to love dolphins. Asian cultures eat them. "They are cute" is not an argument here. That might explain a bias, but not why there's (according to the article) no swan to be found on any menu? 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauerbraten http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauerbraten
      - dalke 12y ago
        "We" would presumably be the types of people who read the magazine. According to the about, that would be: "window-herb growers, career farmers, people who have chickens, people who want to have chickens and anyone who wants to know more about how food reaches their plate" and given the staff members are all US oriented, it's most likely assuming a US readership and US food culture. Thus we, who are random fly-by strangers to the magazine, shouldn't really criticize harshly when they don't take an unexpected audience into account.
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  There was also an interesting link about why we should consider eating invasive (non-native) species. Personally I think the Canadian Geese around Oracle HQ in Redwood City could use a good thinning.
  - suyash 12y ago
    Personally I think the Canadian Geese around Oracle HQ in Redwood City could use a good thinning. - Why? You don't like animals chilling out in a protected area.
    - ChuckMcM 12y ago
      No, because they cause economic harm. Both in damage to aircraft coming into and out of San Mateo airport, damage to cars which are involved in goose related accidents, damage to property in the form of plant destruction and defecation. Without natural predators they have become a nuisance.
      - sjwright 12y ago
        Much like kangaroos in rural Australia. With fewer predators and enormous amounts of native bushland cleared for farming, they have multiplied to the point that they've become a pest. Fortunately, the meat is pretty tasty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_meat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_meat
        seanmcdirmid 12y ago
        I tried kangaroo in Switzerland the last time I visited EPFL; the cafeterias there serve all sorts of weird stuff, like horse... I didn't like it, it tasted a lot like rabbit to me, and sourness in a meat is just weird to me.
        eshvk 12y ago
        > I didn't like it, it tasted a lot like rabbit to me, and sourness in a meat is just weird to me. Odd. I have had both Rabbit and Kangaroo. Both were lean flavorful, the Kangaroo more close to a lean beef than anything. But I wouldn't associate "sour" with both meats. Could you have sampled a bad batch?
- christudor 12y ago
  There once was a man from St John's Who coveted one of the swans, "Oh no" said the Porter, Please take my daughter, The swans are reserved for the dons.
gweinberg 12y ago
I felt the same way. It asks "why don't we eat swans any more?" but as far as I can tell in the US we never did, and in fact the closest thing to an answer is just that we never got in the habit. I get the impression the excess swan problem in Michigan is a recent thing, probably a result of a decline of some swaniferous predator.
- jqm 12y ago
  LOL@swaniferous predator. Maybe they could introduce cold hardy alligators to Michigan? But then there would be two problems....
- qbrass 12y ago
  People buy them as a pond decoration, then turn them loose when they become aggressive as adults.
- taejo 12y ago
  swaniferous (swan-bearing) =/= swanivorous (swan-eating).
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Ironic: HN folks quibbling about a bad article title.
- lotsofcows 12y ago
  Heaven forfend the article could be addressed to mankind! Obviously it was addressed to USAians and was given an odd title by mistake. That's definitely the intuitive, obvious, straight-forward possiblity.
Zigurd 12y ago
As long as it doesn't mention domestic surveillance or the iffy state of an economy propped up on QE, it's a perfectly cromulent HN topic.
ebbv 12y ago
Yep, this article is a completely content free fluff piece which can be summarized thusly: "We don't eat swans. They are a pest in michigan. Why don't people eat swan?" That is not an article it's something you'd say at a party while drunk and everyone would look at you funny.

withdavidli 12y ago

Answer right in the article. "too cute to eat".

Falling3 12y ago
That doesn't typically stop us. Cows (especially young ones) are incredibly cute. Lamb are the quintessence of cuteness. Rabbits are cute as well.
gajomi 12y ago
The author insists on this, and I guess it is true that this notion is promoted by popular culture. But to me it just seems insane. Have these people ever seen a swan? I mean, whenever I get close to one it is readily apparent that I am dealing with some outgrown aggressive river-beast. The only thing keeping it from biting my head off would seem to be a couple factors of two missing in the volume, which a few thousand years of evolution might have an easy solution to. I see very little cute in swans...
- the_af 12y ago
  Agreed. A swan is no cuter than a duck, which is a common dish in many menus. Also, we eat a lot of animals which could be considered "cute". A little lamb, for example, or a piglet. So cuteness can't be the answer.
  - withdavidli 12y ago
    Ducks are still failry rare to be on menus depending on the culture of a restaurant. Some of my friends are still surprised I eat them. I originally omitted in my comment about thoughts of dogs, cats, and bunnies being taboo as meals in the US. It probably has a lot to do with not only perceived cuteness, but then we have a tendency to make cute things pets, and then they become "part of the family". You don't usually see piglets or lambs as options in the pet store.
    - the_af 12y ago

ArkyBeagle 12y ago

In the past, the upper class in England would eat swans.

kefka 12y ago

Because they do not sell it at the market. Ive found all sorts of meat (22 types from my specialty butcher), yet swan isn't there. Perhaps it's "too beautiful" to eat, or perhaps it has a more visceral "horse meat" kind of feeling to it. I don't know. And the article is lacking in detail. So, the answer is "it's not sold".

jqm 12y ago
But this leads to the question of "why don't they sell it at the market"? And the answer to that might be because people wouldn't buy it. Or if they did, only once because it tastes like an old glove that was left in the parrot cage.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  The one quote in the article about the taste was positive...
  - jqm 12y ago
    Somebody else said similar but I'm not convinced. I went back and looked and the guy was a professional chef. And probably some sort of esoteric gourmet of the kind that might drink civet poop coffee. I have to believe if swans were really good people would have started eating them in large numbers a long time ago and they would commercially raise them.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      Batali may have weird tastes, maybe (though he's a pretty mainstream food personality not particularly known for crazy stuff), but it remains the case that we have one piece of testimony that it's tasty and none that it isn't. The fact that we don't eat them is arguably some evidence that they aren't but there are other potential explanations for that, so drawing that conclusion seems shakey.
      - jqm 12y ago

dvfurlong 12y ago

Because the Queen owns them all except St John's Oxford swans who have permission

graeme 12y ago
This is true in the UK. Here's the source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John's_College,_Cambridge#Eating_Swan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John's_College,_Cambridge#Ea... I have no doubt this influence culinary attitudes in all of England's former colonies as well.
waterfowl 12y ago
SJC is at Cambridge
- 001sky 12y ago
  a number of the college names overlap both place, including st johns , but only cambridge-resident fellows can have "unmarked" swan. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John%27s_College,_Oxford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John%27s_College,_Oxford)
oh_sigh 12y ago
Wrong. The queen of england can only lay claim to swans that are in England, and even at that, she only has claim to the "unmarked mute swans in open water".

dang 12y ago

We changed the title (from "Why don't we eat swans?") in an attempt to ward off bikeshed arguments about it.

waterfowl 12y ago

Swans are kind of assholes in my experience and the "mute swan"(the one most people think of) has become a massive pest among the fisheries/parks/etc crowd. I'm generally a pretty adventurous cook/eater and did a goose for christmas last year(geese are a hella pest but somehow the dead one I bought was $70 or something) and probably wouldn't do a swan if it's similar. Geese are almost "beefy"

jeffbr13 12y ago
Yep, goose is quite a dark meat, and is easily overcooked to dryness. But potatoes (or anything) roasted in goose-fat should be the highlight of anyone's christmas dinner!
- dllthomas 12y ago
  Agreed. Goose is all about the goose fat.
- ryanbrunner 12y ago
  If swan is anything like goose (which I can only imagine it is), it's probably too fussy for the average home meal anyways. Goose can be delicious, but it's not something you'd cook outside of an occasion like Christmas.
nerfhammer 12y ago
A lot of people don't realize the Mute Swan is an invasive species to North America http://www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/inv_spp_summ/Cygnus_olor.html#Introduction_Facts http://www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/in...
selimthegrim 12y ago
Larry David has already come to this realization publicly. http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/curb-your-enthusiasm-the-black-swan-34830 http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/curb-your-enthusiasm-the-black-...
arrrg 12y ago
Are geese adventurous? Where I’m from (north-eastern Bavaria) roasted goose breast with potato dumplings are a a common Sunday dinner meal (duck breast is less common, at least in restaurants, but my grandparents and parents often made it). Pork is obviously the standard thing to roast and consequently more common overall, but I would argue that at least where I’m from this roasted geese breast is a bigger deal than chicken based meals. Especially if it’s a Sunday dinner. Goose is also popular for Christmas, turkey not really. Actually, goose is probably the thing to make for Christmas where I’m from. Goose is obviously not chicken or turkey, but I really love it with very fatty gravy, a crispy, salty crust, and quite dry meat. I love fried chicken, too, I think everyone does, plus turkey, but that’s not what I’m looking for when eating roasted goose breast.

saregama 12y ago

Humans eating habits should evolve ! Go Vegetarian !

saregama 12y ago
Ok. Ok.. Suit yourself :)

vernie 12y ago

I'd eat swan. Somebody cook it up for me.

dllthomas 12y ago
Buy it and come over, I'll cook it.
31reasons 12y ago
I would eat swan just to prove a point that its not fair for chickens just because of the looks.

jqm 12y ago

The article doesn't provide the most likely answer... Because they don't taste very good.

the_af 12y ago
The article quotes an opinion saying they are delicious: “We once ate a swan at Christmas nine or ten years ago,” [chef Mario Batali] told Esquire. “It was delicious — deep red, lean, lightly gamey, moist, and succulent… but I’ve never seen swan on a market list.”
- jqm 12y ago
  I missed that. But "lightly gamey" doesn't sound very good to me. I cooked a goose once out of curiosity. As another poster mentions it was very expensive. And, it wasn't very good. An $8 chicken beat it hands down. If swans were really tasty they would have probably been commercially farmed a long time ago. So I have to believe they really don't.... taste very good. Queen of England aside, there are plenty of other countries that would have raised them commercially.
  - the_af 12y ago
    Game is a taste not all people like, but this is not about individual preference. A lot of people eat game. Wild boar, wild duck, deer, and many other "gamey" meats are enjoyed in many countries. Why not swan? Especially if, as the quoted chef claims, it's only lightly gamey.
    - jqm 12y ago
      Not to beat a useless discussion to death but I really think you answered your own question... Why not swan when they eat boar, ducks and deer? I see one and only one very obvious answer. And I'm sticking with it... downvotes be damned!
  - eshvk 12y ago
    I have eaten quite a few gamey animals in my life (Gator, Yak, Goat, Bison, Kangaroo and Ostrich). The flavor is something that I find enjoyable. Probably because where I grew up, the beef didn't taste the way it does here. Also, $8 chicken is very different from a well cooked $40 goose. Having said this as reasons why expense and gameyness are not a discouragement to some people. I would think that the lack of commercial farming is probably a startup idea in waiting. :)

suyash 12y ago

What kind of discussions are propping up to #3 on HN front page. There is more general topic discussion than Hacker related discussion (btw I meant hacker in the good sense)

Russell91 12y ago
The problem is that ppl like you and me can't downvote. Voting systems without downvotes take the expectation of the half-rectified utility across the readership, not the regular utility. So ridiculous articles like this one can survive in spite of having negative true utility. Also, more sensational articles are naturally at an advantage (expectation scales linearly with standard deviation on half-rectified functions). Just one way of thinking about it.
jqm 12y ago
I personally love novel and lighthearted articles. Particularly on Friday afternoon when I don't feel like doing much.
dang 12y ago
Please reread the Hacker News guidelines. Any articles that gratify intellectual curiosity are on topic. This article may be a bit fluffy, but it fits the bill.
- hmsimha 12y ago
  > This article may be a bit fluffy, but it fits the bill. I don't even know whether this was intentional, which makes it the best kind of wordplay

nogodo 12y ago

We shot a swan for the sole purpose of eating it. It was lovely and served a large number of people (apx 8) with plenty of leftovers. This was in a country where they are protected but are a pest and are in large numbers locally. Protected largely for historical reasons (the Queen). In future I would (will) use the pressure cooker however.

mmcclure 12y ago

Kinda off topic, but did anyone catch the comments from "Terrence Andrew Davis"? Google this guy...can't figure out if he's a real, mentally unstable human or a random text generator, but supposedly he wrote an os: http://templeos.org http://templeos.org. Uh...and Swans and stuff...

danford 12y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOSV2 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TempleOSV2 Probably him. Or some guy with a lot of time on his hands pretending to be him.
icebraining 12y ago
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/software-engineer/templeos-an-educational-tool-for-programming-experiments/ http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/software-engineer/templeos-...
RommeDeSerieux 12y ago
This reminds me to log in more often.

johnvschmitt 12y ago

Since the article was short on answers, here's one possible answer as to "why we don't eat swans": Their numbers are too small to get into volume "manufacturing" (CAFO's). 15,000 swans. That's cute. We harvest 10,000 kiloTonnes of cattle per year in the USA alone. That means, our CAFO'S produce about 2 million pounds of beef for every 1 swan we could harvest. Our food system loves repeatable processes & volume efficiencies that wild game can't provide. Note: I may be nearly vegetarian, & eat only local organic meat rarely. But, the facts of CAFO's dominate the market.

jqm 12y ago
If they were really that good they would raise them like turkeys. My guess is that royalty ate them initially largely because they looked regal. The fact that they redressed them with the feathers before serving lends further credence to this idea. Geese are pretty awful to eat.. particularly wild geese from what my brother in law says. Swans are probably even worse.
- dllthomas 12y ago
  We'll agree to disagree about geese, I guess.
  - jqm 12y ago
    I probably didn't cook it right. But my experience with goose was not very good.
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      Certainly possible, or maybe our tastes just differ.
nraynaud 12y ago
let's talk about Safran, of US made foie gras, or kangaroo. I don't believe in your explanation.

jasonlaramburu 12y ago

What about black swans lol?

geoffc 12y ago

Same problem with the seals in New England. They are cute and protected and exploding in population with negative effects on the fish stock. Canada restarted seal hunting to protect the cod fishery and it's working for them.

krisgee 12y ago
>and it's working for them. Yeah, against massive international outcry from people who don't live here and don't understand that fisheries is literally the only job left.

jliptzin 12y ago

"others preferred to stuff the bird with a series of increasingly smaller birds" Dynamic eating!

jqm 12y ago
I found that comment actually amusing. I would upvote it to counter whoever downvoted it but not enough karma.
- jqm 12y ago
  I guess some people have not been exposed to dynamic programming?
  - jliptzin 12y ago
    I suppose not

ratsbane 12y ago

Reminds me of Porterhouse Blue, the 1970s satirical novel about life in the fictitious Porterhouse college at Cambridge, where swans were served at massive feasts and "porterhouse blue" became another name for a stroke caused by excessive consumption: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porterhouse_Blue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porterhouse_Blue

TimFogarty 12y ago
On a related note, fellows of St John's Cambridge are the only people outside the Royal Family allowed to eat unmarked mute swans in the UK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John's_College,_Cambridge#Eating_Swan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John's_College,_Cambridge#Ea...

Zigurd 12y ago

For one thing, you'll need a larger than normal oven. The largest turkeys at the neighborhood turkey farm are about 30 lbs., the size of a small swan, and, while you might be able to physically stuff a bird that big into a newer oven that has maximal cooking volume, it won't cook very well. Turkeys are lean, but if you tried to roast a swan, your roasting pan might overflow with fat and if that catches fire it will burn like a gallon of liquefied paraffin. That's a pretty good way to burn down the house.

Pxtl 12y ago
I didn't realize they were that large up-close. The obvious implication of that fact: Swanturducken.

Rizz 12y ago

There are a few swan farms in The Netherlands, where swans are grown for consumption. They are considered a delicacy in several European countries, but they don't taste as good as duck or geese in my opinion. Some years ago there were a few incidences of Eastern European migrants taking wild swans for food, including some from protected species.

phormat 12y ago

Maybe swan is the decidedly-not-pork mystery meat that chinese food serves me in their 'special' fried rice? Anyone know what im talking about.. Smokey smell, looks like a fowl in its cooked form.

callumprentice 12y ago

Our local yakitori joint serves swan and lion - http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/05/17/burlingame-restaurant-offers-lion-meat-amid-controversy/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/05/17/burlingame-resta...

vj44 12y ago

My grandfather told my that during the WW2 occupation, fisherman occasionally used to catch & eat swans. Even during the war, the meat was not socially accepted for human consumption (ie. in western culture would consider it on par with "dog meat"), thus not very popular.

paganel 12y ago
> Even during the war, the meat was not socially accepted for human consumption For what it's worth, it was a huge scandal in the early 1990s in my country when it was rumored that members of our local gipsy community had eaten swans after they had just arrived in Vienna. It stuck along as a stereotype for at least a decade, if not more. As for the reference, the best I could find was this: http://books.google.ro/books?id=gHKm95EweOwC&pg=PT272&lpg=PT272&dq=eating+swans+vienna+gypsies&source=bl&ots=F1IMlgVdYa&sig=HITnDa4Ra1SdJEQBbxHDPqD7Olw&hl=ro&sa=X&ei=Ld9tU6rjL4mN7Qb1lYHIDQ&ved=0CEcQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=eating%20swans%20vienna%20gypsies&f=false http://books.google.ro/books?id=gHKm95EweOwC&pg=PT272&lpg=PT... , but there was also a Sun story from 2008 about "Eastern" immigrants having eaten swans.

ianbicking 12y ago

"In Michigan, however, which has the highest population of mute swans in North America, the creatures are considered pests. According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the statewide breeding population increased from about 5,700 to more than 15,000 in just ten years. The birds attack people in the water and on shore, particularly children that wander too close to their nests." Sometimes when I get excited that an animal population gets to the point of potentially excess, I have to remind myself that it might be that we've adapted our lives to the absence of the animal and can't tolerate its presence even in modest amounts. Yes, swans are aggressive, but just because they are annoying doesn't mean they are overpopulated. Or concerns that some wild cats might take dogs. That sucks for the dog owner if it happens, but is it really okay to have the expectation that your animal can be in nature without any natural repercussions? That said, once swans become common we shouldn't be afraid to push back against their aggressiveness. Nature does have away to balance behavior, and if humans think they just have to put up with asshole swans or else kill the swans I think we're missing out on some obvious behavior correction opportunities.

SoftwareMaven 12y ago
If that aggressiveness comes at the cost of other species, especially after humans either artificially introduced them or eliminated their natural predators, it is our responsibility to protect those other species. Conservation doesn't mean every individual of every species gets to live.
jqm 12y ago
An alternative to killing and eating swans to deal with overpopulation might be to catch them early. Swan Egg Omelet anyone?

dsirijus 12y ago

I've always wondered - when synthetic meat becomes economically viable, and animal rights come even closer to human, will we end up in much greater need systematically controlling most animal populations? What are we going to do with all those caracases? Feed the poor?

merrua 12y ago

In many of the celtic nations it's for cultural reasons. They are an animal people turn into in myth and "sacred" through custom. No reason however why they are not eaten in countries where they are not native.

sbirchall 12y ago

You know the best eggs in the world? Seagull Eggs. The harvesting of them from the wild is highly protected and I've only ever met a few old boys who used to poach them but I've read a few places (wild cookery and survival books) that the finest omelette you can make is one made from shite-hawk eggs. Guess that's an easier taboo to explain, though. I've had swan and goose and find them both perfectly acceptable meat. The best way I've found so far is to salt cure the breast like pastrami - as the meat is so dark it's very much like a salt cured beef. Very tasty.

joeevans1000 12y ago

the author shows their bias and agenda with the ridiculous claim: "The birds attack people in the water and on shore, particularly children that wander too close to their nests." absurd.

michaelfeathers 12y ago

Maybe the answer is rebranding. Dolphin fish are named 'Mahi-Mahi' on menus to disambiguate them from the mammals.

plugger 12y ago

People do hunt and eat swans. I'm from North Carolina and have a lifetime sportsman license there. Each year I can apply for two swan tags, I believe the cost is something like $5-$15 for the tags. What this article doesn't explain is that swan meat isn't actually very good. Goose is better, but duck is the best (in my opinion). Goose is more gamey, tough, and has less meat than a duck. Swan is even more gamey than goose. I suspect if the author spent more time investigating the "old boys network" he would have realized that hunting and consumption of swan does exist in the US today. Even a simple "hunting swan in america" google search turns up a useful information. Have a look at the aptly named swanhunting.com if you want more info.