Pleasant pheasant: Farm raised, this bird is fit for a president - or you

MILWAUKEE - The pheasant served at white tablecloth restaurants and President Obama's inaugural luncheon last month bears little resemblance to the game bird that hunters flush out of cornfields and brushy thickets.

A restaurant-bound pheasant is white - prized because white pin feathers don't stain the skin on the meat. A wild pheasant is recognized for its color. The wild bird also may taste gamy because it may be older and has to forage for whatever it can find. The restaurant-bound bird is young and fed a steady diet of corn and soybeans.

If you've never sampled pheasant - the kind you buy at the store or a restaurant - it would be a perfect special-occasion dinner for two on Valentine's Day, when one might not hesitate to spend $20 for a bird that weighs 2 to 3 pounds before it's even cooked.

The meat is similar in texture to other poultry but tastes a bit richer.

"People tell us pheasant tastes like chicken," said Mary Jo Bergs, who handles sales and marketing for MacFarlane Pheasants Inc. of Janesville, Wis. "I laugh and say, 'It's what chicken wishes it tasted like.' "

The pheasant on Obama's luncheon plate came from MacFarlane, and now the Janesville farm has a sign out front proclaiming: "Serving pheasant to our president." The farm also sent pheasant to the White House three years ago for a dinner hosted by then-President George W. Bush, according to Bergs.

MacFarlane Pheasants Inc. expects further national attention in March, when the farm is expected to be featured on a segment of the Food Network series "Will Work for Food," Bergs said. The series host is former Philly restaurateur Adam Gertler (The Smoked Joint).

Most people have never seen a white pheasant, the standard meat bird raised by commercial pheasant farms. MacFarlane, which bills itself as the largest pheasant farm in North America, raises several breeds in addition to white, including the common ring-neck popular with hunting clubs.

About one-fourth of the company's business is meat pheasants; the rest are raised for hunting clubs and game farms.

A pheasant is less meaty than a chicken of similar size because genetically, it's still a wild game bird, Bergs said. It hasn't been modified through breeding to be meaty in the way that turkeys and chickens have.

Only farm-raised pheasants processed at government-inspected facilities may be served in restaurants, Bergs said.

MacFarlane Pheasants, which started in 1929, sends live birds and processed birds all over the country through distributors and its Web site, www.pheasant.com.

Whole Foods carries MacFarlane's pheasant, which means the pheasant company must meet humane standards for animal treatment set by the natural foods store, Bergs said.

MacFarlane's list of restaurant clients includes Philly's Four Seasons and other high-end restaurants. You'll find MacFarlane pheasant in restaurants from Boston to New York and California, according to Bergs.

Toubl Game Bird Farms of Beloit, Wis., raises pheasant and processes everything on site - from pheasant sausages and meat sticks to pheasant egg rolls, smoked pheasant and oven-ready pheasant. Toubl sells its products via mail-order at its Web site, www.toubl.com.

Pheasant is much more expensive than chicken because pheasants are raised 16 to 18 weeks before processing, more than twice as long as chickens, said Karen Toubl, co-owner of Toubl. "We have double the feed costs, and more money is invested to get the bird to maturity."

The primary difference between pheasant and chicken is that pheasant meat is a little drier, Toubl said. "You don't cook it at as high a heat, and you baste it to add liquid."

Toubl started in 1969 when co-owner Jan Toubl bought three pheasants to train his Irish setter. The family started out selling live pheasants to small hunting clubs, but a brutal 1982 winter cost them hunting club contracts. So they started smoking pheasants to sell processed birds, in addition to live birds.

Toubl started making its unusual pheasant egg rolls after another business temporarily used the Toubl pheasant processing facility to make pork egg rolls.

The pork egg roll business folded, so the Toubls substituted their own white meat in a new egg roll venture. After all, pheasant originated in China. *