Blackbird Coffee House – Albuquerque, New Mexico
“Sing a song of sixpence A pocketful of rye Four and twenty blackbirds Baked in a pie.” One interpretation of this English child’s 16th Century nursery rhyme posits that it was written about entremet, an Old French term referring to dishes served between courses of a meal. “Dishes” had a very figurative meaning and could represent anything from edible scenic displays to foods designed to amuse or surprise. One of the more popular amusements was to place live birds in a pie. An Italian cookbook from 1549 (translated into English in 1598) actually contained such a recipe: “To make pies so that birds may be alive in them and fly out when it is cut up“. I didn’t actually ponder…