Guineafowl as Food

choi

David Tanis, A Bold Fowl, and It's Not Chicken; Deeply flavored, guinea hen delivers meat that isn't gamy. New York Times, Feb 13, 2013 (in the column City Kitchen).
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/1 ... ts-not-chicken.html

Note:
(a)
(i) For guinea hen, see guineafowl
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guineafowl
(a FAMILY [in biological sense] of birds; native to Africa, but the Helmeted Guineafowl has been domesticated)

There is no need to read the rest of the Wiki page.

I prefer guineafowl to guineahen (or Guinea hen), because otherwise how does one call the male of that species?
(ii) Helmeted Guineafowl
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmeted_Guineafowl
(Numida meleagris; section 1 Taxonomy; Helmeted Guineafowl are often domesticated, and it is this species that is sold in Western supermarkets)

* Guinea pig
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinea_pig
(Despite their common name, these animals are not in the pig family, nor are they from Guinea. They originated in the Andes; section 2 Name)
(b) The article says, "It wasn’t always so. Traditionally, American homesteads had a few guinea fowl running around. And tastes used to include more game, especially ducks and geese."

Americans nowadays, by choice, have a limited meat selection. They do not eat oxtail, for example. (When I went to University of Illinois, a dorm cafeteria served that. Recently I read about oxtail, ask Bostonians how come I have not seen it since I came to Boston in 1989. They were disgusted by the notion of eating oxtail, which is French cuisine.)
(c) The article states "since the guinea is dark meat, the flesh really delivers flavor."

The breast of chicken is white meat, for lack of myoglobin 肌紅蛋白, whose function (storing oxygen locally in the muscle), chemical structure and color are similar to hemoglobin 血紅素 (transporting oxygen). That is because chicken has lost the ability to fly, thus no need to keep myoglobin in breast muscle.
(d) radicchio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radicchio
---------------------Taxonomy
In the early days of the European colonisation of North America, the native Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) was confused with this species. This led to the English name of the American bird, since Turkey and Guinea were equally far-off and exotic places. The word meleagris, Greek for guineafowl, is also shared in the scientific names of the two species, although for the guineafowl it is the species name, whereas for the turkey, it is the name of the genus and (in an altered state) the family.