The directions for "A Liver-Pudding boiled" call for additional skill and thorough familiarity with the art of the charcutier:
"Get the liver of the sheep, when you kill one, and cut it as thin as you can, and chop it; mix it with as much suet shred fine, half as many crumbs of bread or biscuit grated, season it with some sweet herbs shred fine, a little nutmeg grated, a little beaten pepper, and an anchovy shred fine; mix all together with a little salt, or the anchovy liquor, with a piece of butter, fill the crust and close it; boil three hours."
In Mrs. Smith's "Compleat Housewife" (1736) we find these instructions, entitled "To Collar A Pig":
"Cut off the head of your pig; then cut the body asunder; bone it, and cut two collars off each side...."
In Mrs. Glasse's injunctions for roasting a pig, the author is yet more colourful:
"Stick your pig just above the breast-bone, and run your knife to the heart...."
It will be immediately evident that injustice has been done to this noble and worthy companion of man—that of confounding him with the hare, whose only practical use is in a civet or a pie, and in furnishing amusement in coursing. For neither in "The Art of Cookery" nor in her "Compleat Confectioner" does Mrs. Glasse utter the axiom, "First catch your hare," but, as we have seen, "First stick your pig"! It was Beauvilliers who said, in presenting his recipe for hare-pie: "Ayez un lièvre."
Among the dishes presented in "The Art of Cookery" which will be appreciated by the feminine reader is one termed "A Bride's Pie," which no doubt was considered fully worthy the appellation of an old culinary writer—"a darling dainty":
"Boil two calves' feet, pick the meat from the bones, and chop it very fine, shred small one pound of beef suet, and a pound of apples, wash and pick one pound of currants very small, dry them before the fire, stone and chop a quarter of a pound of jar raisins, a quarter of an ounce of cinnamon, the same of mace and nutmeg, two ounces of candied citron, two ounces of candied lemon cut thin, a glass of brandy and one of Champagne, put them in a china dish with a rich puff paste over it, roll another lid and cut it in leaves, flowers, figures, and put a glass ring in it."