Wild turkey
Clean and truss as you would a tame turkey, but wet the stuffing with melted butter, and while roasting the bird must be basted freely with butter. Six or seven times are not too much. The flesh, while sweet and peculiarly “gamy,” is drier than that of his domesticated brother.
As it is impossible to determine his age before shooting him, there are even chances that he will be tougher than if fattened for the table. Should this prove to be the case, steam him over boiling water for an hour before putting him into the roaster.
Send currant or grape jelly around with him instead of cranberry, and add a little lemon juice to the thickened gravy. Garnish him with “link” sausages, boiled and then fried.
Roast grouse
Here again we have dry birds. Clean, rinse out well with soda and water, then with pure water; wipe inside and out, and cover with thin slices of corned ham—more fat than lean. Bind criss-cross with soft twine or narrow tape, pour a cup of boiling water over them, and roast forty minutes, basting with the gravy in the pan three times. Take off the bacon, wash the birds with butter, dredge with flour and brown while you make the gravy.
Thicken this with browned flour, add the juice of half a lemon, boil up, pour in a small glass of claret and serve. Garnish with the ham and whole olives.
Braised wild pigeons
Clean, wash carefully; put an olive in the body of each and bind legs and wings neatly to the sides of the birds.
Fry six or eight slices of fat salt pork in the frying-pan until crisp, but not burned. Strain the fat back, lay in the pigeons and roll over and over in the boiling grease until seared on all sides. Take them up and keep hot. Add a spoonful of butter to the hot fat, and when it hisses, fry a large onion, sliced, in it. Lay the pigeons upon the grating of the roaster, pour the boiling fat and onion over them; add a cupful of weak stock; cover closely and cook steadily for three-quarters of an hour. Test the birds with a skewer or fork, and if tender wash with butter, dredge and brown. Remove to a hot dish and make the gravy.