Americans used to eat pigeon all the time—and it could be making a comeback

Brobson Lutz remembers his first squab with perfect clarity. It was the 1970s at the now-closed French restaurant Lutèce in New York City. “I came from North Alabama where there was a lot of dove and quail hunting and I knew how tasty little birds were,” the fast-talking Southerner recalls. “I’m not even sure if I knew then if it was a baby pigeon or not. But I became enamored with them.”

When he returned home, however, the New Orleans-based physician found pigeon meat in short supply. The bird was occasionally served in the Big Easy, but to satiate his need for squab, Lutz had to get creative. For a time, he says, he would call Palmetto Pigeon Plant, the country’s largest squab producer, and try to buy in bulk. “I pretended like I was a restaurant chef on the telephone to buy some from them, because they were only wholesale,” he says.

Eventually, Lutz decided to take matters into his own hands—and onto his own property. He bought some land along the Mississippi River, retrofitted a building into a pigeon loft, and bought a few pairs of breeding birds. “My initial plan was to go commercial, and I had a restaurant that wanted ‘em,” he says. But he’s found out he’s gotten a quarter of the production he expected. “I don’t know if it’s too hot here in the summer or if they’re not happy here or something, I’m lucky if I get from one pair six babies a year.” It’s enough to fill Lutz, but not enough to share his passion for pigeon meat with his fellow Louisianans.

Squab, once among the most common sources of protein in the United States, has fallen out of favor in the last century. The speedy, handsome, tender, and tasty pigeon of yesteryear was replaced in the hearts and minds of post-World War II Americans with the firsthand experience of the city pigeon, whose excrement encrusts our cities. It was replaced on the plate, too, by the factory-farmed chicken. But thanks to foodies like Lutz, squab is making a slow and steady comeback in French and Chinese restaurants around the country. Trouble is, the bird’s unique development needs mean farmers struggle to meet the growing demand.

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