The eating of swan seems a bit odd to us in hindsight, but I guess it’s no weirder than eating duck or goose. What was weird is that once they’d cooked the swan they would redress it in its skin and feathers before serving. They did the same thing with peacocks, sometimes coating the beak in gold leaf. I suppose peacock and swan probably tasted pretty much like any other bird so you’d want it to look the part so people would know what they were getting and be rightfully impressed. You eat with your eyes after all. Quite macabre though?
Among other oddities of the Tudor table was beaver tail. On Fridays Christian laws decreed that you couldn’t eat meat, just fish, and luckily for the Tudors they considered beaver a fish. Idiots. (There’s a joke in there about beavers and fish, but you can do it yourself. I’m busy writing this). Apparently people in the American wilderness used to have a chow down on beaver tail and I managed to find a fella who’d tried it. He was unimpressed and by the looks of it I’m not surprised one bit.
Friday’s dinner table often included whale too which would be boiled or very well roasted. Squeamish wasn’t a word in their vocabulary either, they would more than happily plough their way through lungs, spleen and udders pickled in brine and vinegar. That sounds pretty minging to our modern ears, but is it much worse than eating any other part of an animal?
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