Editing Flamingo (section)

===Ancient Roman cuisine===
[[File:Pink flamingo prepared for cooking.jpg|thumb|Pink flamingo prepared for cooking ([[Bardo Museum]])]]
While many different kinds of birds were valued items in Roman food, flamingos were among the most prized in Ancient Roman cuisine. An early reference to their consumption, and especially of their tongues, is found in [[Pliny the Elder]], who states in the ''[[Natural History (Pliny)|Natural History]]'':

{{blockquote|{{langx|la|phoenicopteri linguam praecipui saporis esse apicius docuit, nepotum omnium altissimus gurges}}

[Translated:] [[Apicius]], that very deepest whirlpool of all our [[epicure (gourmet)|epicures]], has informed us that the tongue of the phœnicopterus is of the most exquisite flavour.|source=''Natural History'', liber X, chapter 67<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Nat.+10.67&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0138|title = Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, liber x, chapter 67}}</ref><ref>English (John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., 1855)</ref>}}

Although a few recipes for flamingos are found in Apicius' extant works, none refer specifically to flamingo tongues. The three flamingo recipes in the {{lang|la|De re coquinaria}} (''On the Subject of Cooking'') involve the whole creature:
* 220: roasted with an egg sauce, a recipe for [[common wood pigeon|wood pigeons]], squabs, fattened fowl; flamingo is an afterthought.
* 230: boiled; [[parrot]] may be substituted.
* 231: roasted with a must sauce.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Pliny_the_Elder/10*.html|title=LacusCurtius • Pliny the Elder's Natural History—Book 10}}</ref>

[[Suetonius]] mentions flamingo tongues in his ''Life of [[Vitellius]]'':<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0061%3Alife%3Dvit.%3Achapter%3D13%3Asection%3D2|title = C. Suetonius Tranquillus, Vitellius, chapter 13, section 2}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Most notorious of all was the dinner given by his brother to celebrate the emperor's arrival in [[Rome]], at which two thousand of the choicest fishes and seven thousand birds are said to have been served. He himself eclipsed even this at the dedication of a platter, which on account of its enormous size he called the "Shield of [[Minerva]], Defender of the City." In this he mingled the livers of pike, the brains of [[pheasants]] and [[peacocks]], the tongues of flamingoes and the [[milt]] of [[lampreys]], brought by his captains and [[triremes]] from the whole empire, from [[Parthia]] to the [[Spain|Spanish]] [[Strait of Gibraltar|strait]].|source=Suetonius, ''Life of Vitellius''<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Vitellius*.html|title = Suetonius • Life of Vitellius}}</ref>}}

[[Martial]], the poet, devoted an ironic [[epigram]], alluding to flamingo tongues:

{{blockquote|{{langx|la|Dat mihi penna rubens nomen; sed lingua gulosis

Nostra sapit: quid, si garrula lingua foret?}}

[Translated:] My red wing gives me my name; but it is my tongue that is considered savoury by epicures. What, if my tongue had been able to sing?|source=''Epigrammata'' 71, Book 13<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0506%3Abook%3D13%3Apoem%3D71|title = Martial, Epigrammata, book 13, LXXI Phoenicopteri}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/martial_epigrams_book13.htm|title = Martial, Epigrams. Book 13. Mainly from Bohn's Classical Library (1897)}}</ref>}}

There is also a mention of flamingo brains in a later, highly contentious source, detailing, in the life of [[Elagabalus]], a food item not apparently to his liking as much as [[camels]]' heels and parrot tongues, in the belief that the latter was a [[prophylactic]]:

{{blockquote|In imitation of Apicius he frequently ate camels-heels and also cocks-combs taken from the living birds, and the tongues of peacocks and [[common nightingale|nightingales]], because he was told that one who ate them was immune from the plague. He served to the palace-attendants, moreover, huge platters heaped up with the [[viscera]] of [[Mullet (fish)|mullets]], and flamingo-brains, [[partridge]]-eggs, [[thrush (bird)|thrush]]-brains, and the heads of parrots, pheasants, and peacocks.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Historia_Augusta/Elagabalus/2*.html|title = Historia Augusta • Life of Elagabalus (Part 2 of 2)}}</ref>}}