The first contains all birds, from the grive to the smallest of the feathered tribe.
The second ascends from the rail to the snipe, partridge, and pheasant, including the rabbit and the hare; it is divided into three categories, of the marsh, hairy, and feathered.
The third, which bears the name of venison, is composed of the wild-boar, kid, and all other horny-footed cattle.
Game is one of the great luxuries of our tables; it is a healthy, warm, highly-flavored and high tasted flesh, easily digested, whenever one is hungry.
These qualities, however, are not so inherent as not to a certain degree to depend on the skill of the cook. Put some water, salt and beef into a pot, and you can obtain from them a very good soup. Substitute venison for the beef, and the result will not be fit to eat. Butcher's meat, in this respect, has the advantage. Under the manipulation, however, of a skilful cook, game undergoes various modifications and transformations, and furnishes the greater portions of the dishes of the transcendental kitchen.
Game derives, also, a great portion of its value from the soil on which it is fed. The taste of a Perigord partridge is very different from that of one from Sologne, and the hare killed in the vicinity of Paris is a very different dish from one shot on the hills of Valromey or upper Dauphiny. The latter is probably the most perfumed of all beasts.
Among small birds, beyond all doubt, the best is the "beccafico."
It becomes at least as fat as the red-throat or the ortolan, and nature has besides given it a slight bitterness, and a peculiar and exquisite perfume, which enables it to fill and delight all the gustatory organs. Were the beccafico as large as a pheasant, an acre of land would be paid for it.
It is a pity this bird is so rare, that few others than those who live in the southern departments of France, know what it is. [Footnote: I am inclined to think the bird is utterly unknown in America.—TRANSLATOR.] Few people know how to eat small birds. The following method was imparted confidentially to me by the Canon Charcot, a gourmand by profession, and a perfect gastronome, thirty years before the word gastronomy was invented:
Take a very fat bird by the bill and sprinkle it with salt, take out the entrailles, I mean gizzard, liver, etc., and put it whole in your mouth. Chew it quickly, and the result will be a juice abundant enough to permeate the whole organ. You will then enjoy a pleasure unknown to the vulgar.