best place/price for quail?

Hi: I am considering serving grilled quail (along with lamb chops) for our Easter supper. There will be 8-10 adults and I'd like to be able to serve at least 2 quail per person. Anyone know of a place where I can buy them in quantity and at a decent price?

thanks in advance!

bjt

bjt wrote:Anyone know of a place where I can buy them in quantity and at a decent price?

Chicago Game and Gourmet

I've ordered from Whole Foods in the past.

Tai Nam usually has frozen quail at good prices. I've just seen them, never tried them, though:

Tai Nam Market Center
4925 N. Broadway
Chicago, IL 60640
Tel: 773-275-5666

During my time in Chicago, I regularly found inexpensive frozen quail at Tony's Finer Foods on Elston. It was in the low boy freezer case that runs down the middle of the store.

Call me morbid, but I've been shopping around at Chicago's live poultry places quite a bit recently. The best of the best that I've found is Chicago Live Poultry in Little Village. Incredibly clean, very nice folks, and they offer a venerable Noah's Ark of live critters- rabbit, chicken, turkey, goose, duck, pheasant, game hen, two types of pigeon, and yessir, live quail. I think these guys are in relation to Ciale's on Armitage, so you might give them a shout too.

Chicago Live Poultry
2601 S Ridgeway Avenue
Chicago, IL 60623
(773) 542-9451

Ciales Poultry Store
2141 W Armitage Ave
Chicago, IL 60647
(773) 278-1118

Dumb question: do you pick out the live animal you want and then they butcher it for you? In the early 90s I lived right across the street from the Ciales on Armitage. I never bought anything from there, not because I was squeamish but mostly because I was sort of intimidated/didn't know how it worked. Still don't obviously!

bjt

bjt wrote:Dumb question: do you pick out the live animal you want and then they butcher it for you? In the early 90s I lived right across the street from the Ciales on Armitage. I never bought anything from there, not because I was squeamish but mostly because I was sort of intimidated/didn't know how it worked. Still don't obviously!

bjt

You can. At some live poultry places they will usually bring the animal out for your approval, especially when buying birds by the lb. At Chicago Live Poultry when buying game birds- which you pay for by the bird, they will simply retrieve the bird from the back, at which point you might catch a glimpse of your purchase, and then after a short wait, they bring you the bird, now in food format, gutted and plucked.

So a second layer to the original question. We will be celebrating Easter up in Coloma, MI, leaving on the Friday prior. If I were to buy freshly butchered quails from a live poultry place on Thursday, would I need to freeze them until we prepared them on Sunday or do you think they'd be "fresh" if they were refrigerated for 4 days?

I'd much prefer to try this fresh-kill quail but I am not certain that the context of how and when I need it is aligning in terms of timing.

I appreciate any thoughts/suggestions.

bjt

Hi- I would definitely freeze it if I was not going to cook it for 4 days. I was trying to think of any place around Coloma you could buy it at on Saturday. I grew up on a fruit farm South of Coloma. My sister has the farm now, and she has Fruit Acres Farm Market, right next to the Coloma exit of I-94. Hardings is the only grocery store in town now, since Hilltop and Farmer Friday's which was owned by a cousin of mine went out of business. Fred Zoske operates the meat market in Harding's, and I sincerely doubt that he would carry that. D&W that used to be in St. Joe is no longer at that location. You might try Meijer's right off the Pipestone Rd. exit next to Orchards mall. There might be another grocery store in St. Joe that carries quail, like Schneck's, but I do not know. I went home for Christmas, but my sister is going to Missouri for Easter I think. Hope this helps, Nancy

Nancy: I am a HUGE fan of Fruit Acres, and have been going to your family's stand and U-Pick for the 15 years that I've been going to Coloma. It's my very favorite place to pick apples -- and it's on my list for picking peaches too. (This August come hell or high water!) I pretty much only go to the Hardings when I am in Coloma. I think the butcher there is really great, especially the pork and sausages. So maybe I might switch gears and go for a really nice pork roast which I can get from Zoske's. . . . no worries about refrigeration etc.

But I need to check with one of our families, they might not eat pork. Or lamb. Well, if that's the case then we'll just make more veggies!

Nancy: a weird question: did you marry into the Friday family because I thought Farmer Friday (and his peaches) and the Fruit Acres family were separate?

bjt

Hi- My Dad who died in 1989, James Friday, was a 1st cousin of Paul's (Farmer Friday) dad. Our farm is right across the road from Paul Friday's. I am glad you like my sister's peaches. Thanks, Nancy

Yes, I am putting it all together now -- I know exactly where Friday Road is there. If I wanted to plan a group peach picking outing to Fruit Acres (on 4th of July weekend) do you think I should/could contact your sister? Maybe we should move to personal email for this conversation but I am so thrilled to be connected with you!

bjt