I always figured that the first time I ate quail, it would happen because I’d spotted it on the menu at a restaurant I trusted to do the tiny things up right. Instead, my first time came about because while I was at A & H Seafood buying a suckling pig to cook for Christmas dinner, I peeked into their freezer and spotted packages of frozen quail. And since I’m not one to pass up the opportunity for a new culinary experience, I picked up two packages.

Why not just one? If you have to ask, you must not know me very well.

Each package contained six quail, and they weren’t very impressive when frozen. Squashed together as they were, they looked like nothing more than a solid lump of frozen meat, giving no sense of what they once were.

But after a few days of thawing, each quail—weighing in at about 4.66 ounces, if the gross weight of the package can be trusted—because a bird again. And looked kind of cute, if you ask me.

I plucked a recipe from my all-time favorite cookbook—James Beard’s American Cookery, which is so well-written that it’s worth reading even if you have no intention of ever cooking anything.

I chose the simplest recipe, not because I wasn’t up to a challenge, but because I wanted to taste the quail meat itself as purely as possible, unmasked by too heavy a sauce or too flavorful a spice. So after some butter, salt, pepper, and little else, plus 20 minutes in a 450-degree oven, here’s what I ended up with.

So what were they like?

Irene felt the quail tasted exactly like chicken, while the quail seemed a little gamier than that to me, almost as if there was a slight liver flavor. Though as I thought about it, I realized that could have been a taste I was picking up from the pepper.

In any case, we were both pleased, though I still look forward to eating quail prepared by a chef who knows what he or she is doing. Besides … I have six more quail in the freezer downstairs just waiting to be cooked according to a more complex recipe.

But not for awhile yet. Because first comes the suckling pig!