Trail and kiviak

often wonder how certain weird and wonderful eating habits started in life. Who was the first to think about it, was it accidental or did somebody specifically experimented when preparing certain foods? Take snipe and woodcock, for instance. Did a shooter observe the birds evacuating their bowels on take-off and thought: “Ah, there’s no faeces in those guts so maybe we can eat it as well? Being such asmall bird, it will add a lot to the dish.” Or maybe they thought the meat too dry and saw the alluring fatty entrails and decided to try something with the guts. The gizzards were perhaps too hard and bitter for they were discarded, and the rest mashed up, which they somehow started calling “trail” (from entrails Ipresume). The intestines, heart and liver are finely chopped up and blended with a glace (meaty gravy or stock from all