CHAPTER XI.
POULTRY.
The term Poultry, includes all the domesticated birds reared for the table—fowls, capons, turkeys, geese, ducks, and guinea fowl. Those who live in the country and intend to rear fowls for the consumption of their families, should have a poultry-yard, called by the French, a basse cour. It should be well sheltered, with a warm aspect, and sufficiently inclined to be always dry. It should also be supplied with sand or ashes, and there should be also a supply of running water, of which poultry are fond. A green patch of earth should be next to the poultry-yard, to allow the fowls free exercise. Poultry are the better for high feeding from the very shell, and on this account it is advisable to give them the heaviest corn. Even young chickens may be put for feeding as soon as the hen has ceased to regard them. When chickens are wanted for domestic purposes, they should be left at liberty in the farm-yard, and if they have plenty of food they will be soon fit for the table, and rich and juicy in flavour. Nowhere do you get these young and juicy chickens better than at the country inns in Ireland and Scotland. As soon as fowls are sufficiently fat, they should be killed, or they will lose flesh and become unhealthy. Turkeys are more delicate to rear in their infancy than fowls, but they become hardy as they grow older. When well-grown, turkeys supply themselves in their ramblings, so that they require no food but at leaving their homes in the morning, and returning at night. After six months, turkeys may be crammed, as is practised with fowls; but they require a much longer period to render them fully fat for the table. Guinea fowls are in the season greatly prized at London dinner tables. The same food appropriated to the young of gallinaceous fowls and turkeys, is good for guinea chicks.
The white duck being the largest of the domesticated kind, is the best for the poulterer, though it is not usually considered so delicate in flavour as the dark coloured. The grand object of preparing poultry of all kinds as speedily as possible for the table, is effected by supplying them with dry, soft, and green food, by keeping them thoroughly clean, and by affording them water and exercise ground.
Of the wholesomeness of poultry, as an article of diet, Lémery thus speaks in his “Traité des Aliments:”—
“Their flesh is pectoral, easily digested, produces good juice, is very nourishing, increases the spirits, moistens and cools, and is very proper for macerated persons, that are recovering from sickness. Avicen pretends, it makes the understanding more quick and lively, and that it clears the voice.
“It agrees at all times, with any age and constitution: in the meantime it is better for nice persons, and such as lead an idle life, than for those who are strong, robust, and used to a violent exercise or hard labour, seeing these last require more solid food, and that does not so easily waste.”
“Some persons,” he goes on to say, “formerly were of opinion, that the eating of hens, chickens, and capons, caused the gout; and perhaps there were two things that gave occasion for this popular error. First, these animals are subject to the same disease, and consequently may impart it to those who feed upon them; but it would follow from hence, that we must contract all the diseases of every animal we eat of, which we find otherwise by experience. Secondly, they were inclined to this opinion, from a consideration that those who lead an idle life, fare high, and feed upon juicy and nice food, such as chickens and capons, are more afflicted with the gout than others; but it is not because these people live usually upon capons and chickens, that they are subject to this distemper, but rather by reason of the idle life they lead, and the excess they go to in all sorts of pleasures. In short, if it were true that the eating of these fowls brought the gout upon us, we should see nothing else but gouty persons everywhere; for we may say, that there is now-a-days no food more common than poultry.”
Of capons, this famous doctor thus speaks:—