Foodlore & More is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Marsh Hen and Sora Rail There are six species of rail that migrate through the coastal South. The King and Clapper Rails are called Marsh Hens and the Sora, the Virginia Rail. These matter most among Georgians who savor game birds. We will discuss the smaller Sora, first. They nest in the North, in the upper reaches of the United States and Canada, and head southward a day or two before the first frost. The Sora possesses an uncanny internal barometer that can anticipate the turn in the weather. In the days of the great rice plantations, they came into the wetlands of the Lowcountry to feast on rice. The fattened Sora was valued just behind the Rice Bird as the most succulent fowl available in autumn. A Lowcountry comentator of 1858 described the culinary preparation of these fattened rail birds: “They are dressed for the table in a peculiar way, like rice birds, seasoned with salt and pepper, sewed in white paper, and placed on a grid iron” (1858).
ISSUE 88, GRAB BAG, Part 1: Marsh Hen
ISSUE 88, GRAB BAG, Part 1: Marsh Hen
ISSUE 88, GRAB BAG, Part 1: Marsh Hen
Foodlore & More is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Marsh Hen and Sora Rail There are six species of rail that migrate through the coastal South. The King and Clapper Rails are called Marsh Hens and the Sora, the Virginia Rail. These matter most among Georgians who savor game birds. We will discuss the smaller Sora, first. They nest in the North, in the upper reaches of the United States and Canada, and head southward a day or two before the first frost. The Sora possesses an uncanny internal barometer that can anticipate the turn in the weather. In the days of the great rice plantations, they came into the wetlands of the Lowcountry to feast on rice. The fattened Sora was valued just behind the Rice Bird as the most succulent fowl available in autumn. A Lowcountry comentator of 1858 described the culinary preparation of these fattened rail birds: “They are dressed for the table in a peculiar way, like rice birds, seasoned with salt and pepper, sewed in white paper, and placed on a grid iron” (1858).