Can You Actually Eat Swan?
If you've been keeping up with the hit FX series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, then you probably watched (spoiler alert) Truman himself eating an actual swan. In episode five, he hires a private chef to covertly steal a swan from Central Park and kill and cook it.
While I won't get into the weeds about the symbolic reason why Capote wanted to eat a swan, I will tell you why it's so controversial in the first place. Historically, swans have been an off-limits to eat. It's long been considered taboo to hunt the animal, which likely stems from a British law that made swans exclusive property of the Royal Family. It was outlawed long ago for commoners to try the bird, but the king and queen were free to feast on it nonetheless.
Are swans illegal to eat?
It depends on where you live. It's legal to hunt and eat swans in some states: Alaska, Utah, Nevada, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Idaho. Most of those states require hunters to have lottery drawn tags. Hunting swans is banned in many other states, including New York.
It also remains illegal in the UK (including for the Royal family now, too). The bird is considered a protected species, and even if Prince William himself wanted to chow down on some swan, it's not an option.
Why is it so taboo to eat swans?
The website The Outline explained the taboo like this: It's like "being able to coo over cute dogs on Instagram while enjoying a plate of buffalo wings." The author argues that society has created two separate categories: food animals and wildlife animals. The former includes animals that are deemed less intelligent or rare or beautiful, and therefore they make better meals. They're not "special" enough to preserve.
"Biologically, there is obviously not much difference between a swan and, say, a duck or a goose," Dr Steve Loughnan, Professor of Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, told the outlet. "The line which says one is edible and one is not is thus arbitrary—ducks and geese belong to the 'food' category and swans belong to the 'wildlife' category."
Though Monica Kim wrote about the subject nearly a decade ago now for Modern Farmer, her words still ring true: "Swans have been a taboo food for hundreds of years, thanks in large part to their perceived rarity and beauty."
What does swan taste like?
While you certainly won't see swan popping up on a Chili's menu anytime soon, it's not entirely unheard of for folks to try swan in a state where it's legal. In fact, now-disgraced chef Mario Batali once spoke about the experience. "I have a lot friends in Michigan who hunt, and we once ate a swan at Christmas nine or 10 years ago," he told Esquire. "It was delicious—deep red, lean, lightly gamey, moist, and succulent."
"But I've never seen swan on a market list," Batali added. "Swans seem a bit more regal and untouchable than a common chicken—not to mention that the trumpeter swan was close to being an endangered species for several decades."
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