Quail has deep roots in the South, but before 1974, you either had to hunt it yourself or receive a coveted gift from someone else’s bounty if you wanted to enjoy the tender, juicy bird on your table.
“If you knew, you knew,” says Brittney Miller, owner of Manchester Farms, the oldest commercial quail farm in the United States, referencing the somewhat exclusive contingent of folks who used to know about and have access to the bird. That changed when Miller’s father, Bill Odom, started the family’s Columbia, South Carolina, quail farm, somewhat by accident, in the early seventies. An avid bird hunter, he’d been using quail to train his bird dogs and found himself with too many. “His neighbors literally said, ‘If you dress [the quail], we’ll buy them,” Miller says. “And so [my dad] hatched Manchester Farms on the picnic table in our backyard.”
Now the farm raises eighty thousand birds a week, which can be found online; in grocery stores like Publix, Kroger, and Harris Teeter; and at a litany of acclaimed restaurants like Husk in Nashville and the Dining Room at High Hampton in Cashiers, North Carolina.
But just because quail is more widely available now doesn’t mean it’s morphed into an everyday delicacy for most. “It’s an emotional food,” Miller says. “It’s family tradition handed down to have quail at special moments like weddings, birthdays, and baptisms. Everyone has these nostalgic memories.”
For quail aficionados and novices alike, this recipe, loved by Manchester Farms and created by the long-standing Camden, South Carolina, caterer Aberdeen Catery, is a great place to start. It’s something Miller calls “easy but legendary” and something anyone can do. “It’s so good and it’s so simple.”
Outside of the quail breasts, you’ll likely have everything you need to make this dish in your pantry, and prep time is virtually nonexistent, making this an ideal recipe to add into your Thanksgiving or Christmas repertoire. Yes, it’s a lot of butter, but isn’t that the sign of any great holiday dish?
