Gull

gull the common name for a very large tribe of sea-birds, of which many are edible but few are eaten, except locally in coastal communities where there is a tradition of doing so. It is more common for their eggs to be eaten.

Three of the best-known species are: Larus canus, the common gull; L. ridibundus, the black-headed gull; and L. argentatus, the herring gull. In England, in earlier centuries, gulls were among the birds recorded as being kept in poultry-yards and fattened for consumption. Thus Robert may (1685) explained how to keep herns, puets (thought to be young black-headed gulls), gulls, and bitterns. One purpose of this was ‘to furnish the table at great feasts’. Although nobody would think of doing this now, the elaborate measures suggested by May seem to show that in his time one could make the birds highly palatable. He explains that:

the manner of bringing them up with the least charge, is to take them out of their nests before they can flie, and put them into a large barn, where there is many high cross beams for them to perch on; then to have on the flour [floor] divers square boards with rings in them, and between every board which should be two yards square, to place round shallow tubs full of water, then to the boards you shall tye great gobbits of dogs flesh, cut from the bones, according to the number which you feed, and be sure to keep the house sweet, and shift the water often, only the house must be made so, that it may rain in now and then, … [the birds loved being rained on] … but if you feed her for the dish [i.e. especially for the table], then you shall feed them with livers, and the entra[i]ls of beasts, and such like cut in great gobbits.