The Peacock in the Talmud: From King Solomon’s Palace to Forbidden Recipes

When we think of a peacock, we immediately picture a magnificent fan of colors — a proud bird perching on a fence, spreading its iridescent feathers like a living rainbow.

What we don’t imagine is grilled peacock wings or smoked peacock breast. Yet, apparently, people in ancient times thought differently.

Peacock for Dinner?

The Talmud tells a fascinating story about Levi bar Sisi, a disciple of Rabbi Yehuda the Prince — the compiler of the Mishnah. Levi once visited the home of Yosef the Hunter, who, as his name suggests, probably had a large variety of exotic birds.

To honor his distinguished guest, Yosef served him a peculiar delicacy: a peacock’s head — cooked in milk!

Now, according to Rabbi Yose the Galilean, the biblical prohibition of meat cooked in milk applies only to mammalian meat, not to poultry. Some Jewish communities in the Galilee followed this lenient opinion.

However, Levi bar Sisi was a student of Rabbi Yehuda, who ruled definitively that the ban includes poultry as well. Out of reverence for his teacher’s ruling, Levi declined the dish — missing out, it seems, on what was once considered a royal delicacy.

Modern researcher Professor Zohar Amar, who studies animals mentioned in the Bible and Talmud, notes that peacock meat was indeed eaten in certain regions and was even regarded as highly flavorful.

The Peacock in Rabbinic Literature

There’s no real doubt that the Talmud’s “tavas” refers to our familiar peacock. Rashi explicitly identifies it, writing: “Tavas – po’on, that cries out.” The French word paon indeed means “peacock,” and, as anyone who’s heard one knows, the bird’s harsh, screeching call hardly matches the aristocratic elegance its plumage suggests.

The Sages also refer to the peacock’s shimmering colors in a discussion about leprosy (tzara’at): “What is meant by ‘greenish’ among greens? Rabbi Sumchus said: Like the color of a peacock’s wings.”

Why the Bible Never Mentions Peacocks

According to many commentators and scholars, the peacock does appear in the Bible under a different name.

In Melachim I, 10:22, we read that Shlomo Hamelech's fleet brought from distant lands “gold, silver, ivory, tukkiyim, and apes.” Most scholars identify tukkiyim as peacocks, imported from India.

In several Eastern languages, the peacock is called tokai or tuki, and the Hebrew tukkiyim likely preserves that ancient word. Even the modern Hebrew tavas seems to be a later adaptation of the same root.

The peacock’s original habitat is India, and it was the Romans — many centuries after Shlomo Hamelech, who popularized the bird in the Mediterranean world. Shlomo, it seems, imported only a few as exotic treasures for his palace gardens.

A Halachic Debate: Kosher or Not?

Not all rabbis, however, agreed that our modern peacock is the same bird described in the Talmud. 

About 400 years ago, Rabbi Chaim Benveniste, a leading halachic authority in Turkey, wrote: “I was asked about a bird called po’on in the vernacular — its feathers are splendid, with two or three rose-like plumes upon its crest. Its whole body is exceedingly beautiful, except its legs, which are black like a raven’s. Is it pure or impure? In Constantinople, there are many such birds, yet no one eats them, and the wise men of Salonika hold it to be an impure bird.”

He concluded that there are different species of peacocks, and it’s uncertain which type the Sages considered kosher — another good reason not to experiment with peacock recipes today.