A Brief History of Food: Pheasants

The common pheasant (Phasianus colchicus), also known as the ring-necked pheasant or blue-headed pheasant, is native to Asia, where it is widespread, but has been widely introduced elsewhere as a game bird. The bird’s scientific name translates from Latin as “pheasant of Colchis” where the species name colchicus is a reference to the area on the Rioni River in modern day Georgia. This major Georgian river was called Phasis by the ancient Greeks so their term corresponding to the English “pheasant” is Phasianos ornis (Φασιανὸς ὂρνις) and means exactly that: “bird of the river Phasis”.

Their original range extended from Taiwan and mainland China through Korea, Siberia, Manchuria to the extreme southeast of Europe in the northern foothills of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black Seas. It was most likely on the Black Sea coast and along the Rioni River in particular that the ancient Greeks first encountered these distinctive birds.

If common pheasants were known to the ancient Greeks, then they were certainly known to the Romans. Recipes for preparing pheasant meat were discussed by Marcus Gavius Apicius in the 1st-century AD. Pheasant husbandry is also discussed by Columella in the same century and, based on the former's writings, by Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus Palladius in De Re Rustica in AD 350. The bird was extensively introduced in many places across the Empire eventually becoming a naturalised member of the European fauna. As far as we can determine, however, the common pheasant was not known in the Roman province of Britannia having not been introduced that far West. It is possible that pheasants were naturalised in Great Britain around AD 1059, perhaps earlier, but seemingly disappeared from most of the isles in the early 17th-century. Having been ignored for many years, the common pheasant was rediscovered as a game bird in the 1830s.

The first mentions of pheasants in Scotland occur in the late 16th-century, although they did not penetrate as far as the Scottish Highlands until the nineteenth, when a cock was recorded in the Grampian Mountains in 1826. Pheasants are well adapted to the British climate and breed naturally in the wild without human supervision. Today they are found in woodland, heaths and commons, farmland, scrubland and wetlands, but the common pheasant’s natural habitat is grassland near water with small copses of trees. Indeed, pheasants are a common sight in Britain's fields, woodland and, sadly for those struck by vehicles, its roads. Since the 19th-century they have been reared extensively by gamekeepers for the shooting season that runs from 1st October to 31st January. Around 30,000,000 pheasants are released each year on shooting estates, mainly in the Midlands and South of England. So, if the risk for pheasants becoming roadkill is not enough, then there is always the open season. Bon appétit!