SOYER’S NEW MODE OF CARVING.
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YOU are all aware, honorable readers, of the continual tribulation in carving at table, for appetites more or less colossal, and when all eyes are fixed upon you with anxious avidity. Very few persons are perfect in this useful art, which requires not only grace, but a great deal of skill. Others become very nervous; many complain of the knife, which has not the least objection to be found fault with; or else they say, this capon, pheasant, or poularde is not young, and consequently not of the best quality. You may sometimes be right, but it certainly often happens that the greatest gourmet is the worst carver, and complains sadly during that very long process, saying to himself, “I am last to be served; my dinner will be cold.”
Reproaches of this kind are daily addressed to the culinary artiste, who remembers perfectly well having burned his fingers whilst sending up those important removes. To illustrate this just question I will relate a curious and historic anecdote:—having one day served a petit diner, très recherché, for five persons, in which was a poularde à l’ambassadrice, a new and rather voluminous dish of mine, after the first course a message was sent to me that the gentlemen had found that dish so good they regretted I had not sent two poulardes instead of one; at first I took this message for a pleasantry, but a short time after three parts of the poularde came down in a state that if exposed over a laundry door would have served for a sign, without having recourse to those popular words, “mangling done here;” the sight of a dish so greatly disfigured made me collect a few of my little culinary ideas. Nature, says I to myself, compels us to dine more or less once a day; each of those days you are, honorable reader, subject to meet en tête-à-tête with a fowl, poularde, duck, pheasant, or other volatile species; is it not bad enough to have sacrificed the lives of those animaux bienfaisans to satisfy our indefatigable appetites, without pulling and tearing to atoms the remains of our benefactors? It is high time for the credit of humanity and the comfort of quiet families, to put an end to the massacre of those innocents.
Amongst other tribulations of carving I shall relate a most boufonne anecdote. “If you should, unhappily, be forced to carve at table,” says Launcelot Sturgeon, in his Essays, Moral, Philosophical, and Stomachic, “neither labour at the joint until you put yourself into a heat, nor make such a desperate effort to dissect it as may put your neighbours in fear of their lives; however, if any accident should happen, make no excuses, for they are only an acknowledgment of awkwardness. We remember to have seen a man of high fashion deposit a turkey in this way in the lap of a lady, but with admirable composure, and without offering the slightest apology, he finished a story which he was telling at the same time, and then, quietly turning to her, merely said, ‘Madam, I’ll thank you for that turkey.’” My conscience will not allow me to swear to the authenticity of the fact, but in the course of twelve months past I have witnessed a very similar instance, only the party not possessing the assurance of the fashionable above mentioned, did not continue the conversation, but in his nervous anxiety, endeavouring to replace it on the dish with vivacity, sent it rolling across the table to his right-hand neighbour, who quickly perceiving the imminent danger in which he was placed, fortunately arrested its further progress with his fork. One hearty laugh of the remaining party terminated this scene of confusion.
After a short consideration I found, by a most simple rule, and with the greatest facility, that a bird that would take ten minutes to carve very badly may be done well in two or three by the most inexperienced person. From this process a number of advantages may be derived: first, you may eat your dinner much hotter; secondly, you can make eight or ten pieces of a fowl, or any other bird, where, previously, great difficulty was experienced in making five or six; and each person will thereby be enabled to choose a favorite piece; a large bird, such as turkey, poularde, capon, &c., will be fit to reappear on your table in a very inviting state. I must also observe that the birds are not in the least disfigured, but, on the contrary, their appearance is much improved.
DIRECTIONS FOR CARVING.
By the simple process which I have effected for the jointing of game or small poultry, with a long pointed pair of scissors, separating the sinews which join the wings to the breast, making the incision as small as possible, and also jointing the legs, by passing your finger between the skin and the flesh, pressing the legs over the breast with the left hand, the separation of the joints may be easily effected and having thus detached the four principal parts, the carving, when roasted, will be very simple. But for the jointing of large birds, as turkeys, geese, capons, &c., procure an instrument I invented for that purpose from Bramah’s, Piccadilly, with which a very intelligible printed direction will be given for its use; after having jointed the bird, truss it with a packing-needle and string, as usual, but not pressing them so tightly, or they would become deformed, whilst, on the contrary, if merely brought to their usual shape, they will look as plump as possible, and the process they have previously undergone will be totally imperceptible. In many instances where I have sent poultry to table thus previously jointed, the parties carving have been quite surprised at their unexpected progress in that difficult art. Formerly nothing was more difficult to carve than wild fowl, the continual motion (when alive) of the wings and legs making the sinews almost as tough as wires, puzzling the best of carvers to separate them; my new method has quite abolished such a domestic tribulation. A long and dry description for the carving of each bird separately would be entirely useless, as every one of my readers will have perceived that almost the whole difficulty is defeated by this simple process; I shall therefore leave the subject, making but the following observation, which is, that in everything I dislike a straight line, and still more so in carving any kind of bird, by doing which you not only spoil their appearance, but cut against the grain, causing them to eat dry and, imperceptibly, obliging you to assist some of the guests to very thick pieces, unless the breast is very full and plump. I have here given a simple woodcut of a small turkey, by which you will easily perceive, that by trussing and carving in my new way, as represented, you will be enabled to carve for more people, assisting each to better slices with a middling-sized fowl, or any other bird, than with a larger one trussed and carved in the usual method. Keep, if possible, the legs in the position indicated in the design; any small birds, such as woodcocks, plovers, snipes, or teal, are generally cut into two or four, being easily carved, but for anything above their size the foregoing plan had better be acted upon.
