This was supposed to be a Valentine’s Day meal. Dainty roast quail, so small that a serving is two birds each. Precious. Adorable. Perfect for Valentines.

Perfect, yes, as long as your notion of a romantic meal includes eating with your hands and gnawing on bones as if you were in King Henry VIII’s court. Unless you are as skillful with dinner knife as a surgeon is with a scalpel, the easiest way to eat a small bird such as a quail is with your fingers. It is a messy affair, unless you can get your quail already “tunnel boned” in which the main body bones have already been removed. A bird prepared like this you can easily stuff and then just use a fork and knife to cut and eat. Alas, although I was able to find quail (frozen) at each of the three stores we checked, they were all still fully bone-in. Which means fingers, and little bones, and messy, and primal. Hmm, primal. Wait, maybe that’s not so bad after all for a romantic meal?

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