A friend recently made a mistake and had to decide whether to admit his error.  It reminded me of the expression, to “eat crow”.

According to Wikipedia, this “is an American colloquial idiom, meaning humiliation by admitting wrongness or having been proved wrong after taking a strong position…  crow is one of the birds listed in Leviticus chapter 11 as being unfit for eating,” perhaps because it eats carrion.  They note the expression first appeared in print in a humor piece in 1850 (reference Comments on Etymology, October 2003).  WorldWideWords also mentions a usage in 1850, where it appeared as “eating boiled crow”.  I found some references to a story of an American forced to eat a crow by a British soldier, and though the story is set during the War of 1812, it was published in 1877, according to WordWizard.

The full expression my friend’s dilemma brought to mind is something I read (and now I can’t find the source – does anyone know where this came from?): if you’re going to eat crow, it tastes better when it’s fresh