A fowl or chicken should be kept some time before it is cooked. If cooked immediately on being killed, as is frequently the case at country inns in Ireland and Scotland, even a young fowl is tough. Horace’s method of rendering a fowl tender is well remembered by every Etonian:—
“Si vespertinus subitò te oppresserit hospes,
Ne gallina malùm responset dura palato,
Doctus eris vivam musto mersare Falerno:
Hoc teneram faciet.”
“Poultry,” says M. Brillat Savarin, “is to the kitchen that which canvas is to the painter, or Fortunatus’ wishing cap to the charlatan. Poultry may be served boiled, roasted, fried, hot or cold, whole or in parts, with or without sauce, boned or unboned, devilled, grilled, or farced, and always with equal success.” To my thinking, the best fowls in France are those “du Mans,” in the department of La Sarthe; but M. Brillat Savarin holds those of Caux in Normandy, and de la Bresse, to be equally good. The poularde of Montalbanois en Quercy is excellent.
For ages roast poultry has been a favourite dish in England. Shakespeare, who knew every thing, from heaven-born philosophy down to humblest household affairs, puts into the mouth of Justice Shallow directions for a dinner, which might be eaten with relish now-a-days. “Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of short-legged hens (the true criterion of goodness), a joint of mutton, and any pretty, little tiny kickshaws.” A capon in his day was as much relished as now, and the cost, according to the papers found in the pocket of Falstaff, was, a capon 2s. 2d., sauce 4d., sack, two gallons, 5s. 8d., bread, a halfpenny.
Our roasting of poultry, though not so excellent as our roasting of beef and mutton, is yet very good, and unless a host be sure of his cook, he had better order for his guest a roast capon, a roast fowl, or a roast or boiled turkey. The turkey, either roast or boiled is excellent, and the same remark applies to fowl. If served boiled, nothing is better than good celery sauce, either with fowl or turkey. There are scores of ways of serving a poularde in France. There is the poularde rôtie, the poularde au gros sel, the poularde à la bourgeoise, the poularde à la Montmorency, à la Marseillaise, à la Tartare, au suprême, invented by Beauvilliers, and à la Grimod de la Reynière.
There are also various entrées of fowl and chicken, such as poulets à la reine, à la regence, à la Montmorency, à l’ivoire; and various fricassées, as, à la chevalière, à la Saint Lambert, à la financière, à la Bourguinonne, à la Villeroi, and tutti quanti; but it is necessary to say, that to produce these entrées, or the filets de poulet à la royale, or cotellettes de cuisses de poulets à la perigueux, or à suprême de volaille, one must have an accomplished cook.
The sooner we multiply schools of cookery for entrées and entremets, the better. There are a couple or three existing already, I believe: one in Mortimer Street, Cavendish Square; one in Charles Street, Middlesex Hospital; and one in Berners Street, Oxford Street. But there ought to be twenty times as many. Nothing is so difficult to obtain as a good cook, and yet higher wages are paid to male and female cooks than to any other class of servants.