The "haute cousine" made us used to eat, chicken, goose, duck, ostrich or even pigeon, but did you ever ask yourself, why you’ve never seen a swan on a menu of all this fancy in-restaurants so far?
I mean, swans are really beautiful birds, but from a cooking point of perspective, one exemplary should be able to fill the stomach of at least eight people. So why the hell is no one offering fine compositions of swan?
In mediaeval times, when many people were threatened by dearth, they were forced to eat swans, so it’s likely to find swan cooking receipts in books written at that time.
Nowadays, no one would eat swan meat anymore and the reason is quite trivial: On the one hand as a result of their main feeding habit (mainly fishing plants in molding waters), swan meat tastes extremely train-oily, on the other hand many swans are infected with salmonella which makes it risky for human to eat them.
Finally, there is a third reason, that might bring you into prison in some countries: swans are used to be courtesy of the aristocrates and you need to be privileged to kill them. Hence, e.g. in UK, only the Queen may allow you to kill and eat a swan.