Scoter

scoter Melanitta nigra, a European and N. American diving duck which used to be thought, at least in Normandy and parts of Britain, to be permissible fare during lent. Their fishy taste seemed to absolve them from counting as ‘flesh’. However, they have rarely been considered a delicacy, either in Europe or in N. America, although Phillips (1922–6 quoted in Simon, 1983) said that in New England they were ‘still very much appreciated by those who have the patience and the courage to stew them in the proper way’. Phillips also took the trouble to pass on a camp cookery method of cooking them in a ‘backwards oven’, after which they were said to be ‘invariably tender, juicy and deliciously flavoured’.