Four and twenty blackbirds
- Sing a song of sixpence,
- a pocket full of rye.
- Four and twenty blackbirds,
- baked in a pie.
- When the pie was opened,
- the birds began to sing.
- Wasn't that a dainty dish
- to set before the king?
- The king was in his counting house,
- counting out his money.
- The queen was in the parlour,
- eating bread and honey.
- The maid was in the garden,
- hanging out the clothes,
- When down came a blackbird
- and pecked off her nose!
According to the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, an Italian cookbook from 1549 (translated into English in 1598) actually contains a recipe "to make pies so that birds may be alive in them and flie out when it is cut up." The ODNR also cites a 1723 cook who describes this as an earlier practice, the idea being that the birds cause "a diverting Hurley-Burley amongst the Guests."
We have managed to collect a few historic recipes for you here.
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