Jailbird: Pigeons should stay clear of prisons (Picture: Getty Images)

It’s a recipe that might have Delia, Jamie and Gordon in a flap.

But in a novel twist on ‘doing bird’, a prisoner appears to have shared his tip for stomaching grub behind bars – boil-in-the-bag pigeon.

A lag calling himself J McLaughlin claims the recipe is a favourite at HMP Wymott, a Category C jail in Lancashire that holds 1,140 inmates.

In prison magazine Inside Time, he writes the recipe was ‘first derived by a prisoner who, like most of us, couldn’t stomach the slop served up in lieu of food in prison’.


Convicts are advised to leave some breadcrumbs on the windowsill of their cell, and tie a piece of string to the handle of the open window.



Once a pigeon is attracted, the prisoner slams the window, stuns the bird and wrings its neck.

It is then plucked, its breasts cut out with a prison razor and boiled in a kettle using a sealable bag from a brew pack.

McLaughlin advises adding butter, salt and pepper with chopped chillies.

‘Boiled or roast potatoes left over from prison-issue meals can be cooked in the same way,’ he adds.

One insider said: ‘This guy’s recipe is the talk of the prison. Everyone reads Inside Time and quite a few are joking about giving it a shot – I pity any pigeon which strays into the wrong place.’

The Prison Service ‘had no record’ of pigeons being cooked by inmates.