[131-*] Priscilla Haslehurst, in her Housekeeper’s Instructor, 8vo. Sheffield, 1819, p. 19, gives us a receipt “to goosify a shoulder of lamb.” “Un grand Cuisinier,” informed me that “to lambify” the leg of a porkling is a favourite metamorphosis in the French kitchen, when house lamb is very dear.
[133-*] Mons. Grimod designates this “Animal modeste, ennemi du faste, et le roi des animaux immondes.” Maitland, in p. 758, of vol. ii. of his History of London, reckons that the number of sucking-pigs consumed in the city of London in the year 1725, amounted to 52,000.
[133-†] Some delicately sensitive palates desire the cook to parboil the sage and onions (before they are cut), to soften and take off the rawness of their flavour; the older and drier the onion, the stronger will be its flavour; and the learned Evelyn orders these to be edulcorated by gentle maceration.
[133-‡] An ancient culinary sage says, “When you see a pig’s eyes drop out, you may be satisfied he has had enough of the fire!” This is no criterion that the body of the pig is done enough, but arises merely from the briskness of the fire before the head of it.
[137-*] If you think the flavour of raw onions too strong, cut them in slices, and lay them in cold water for a couple of hours, or add as much apple or potato as you have of onion.
[137-†] Although the whole is rather too luscious for the lingual nerves of the good folks of Great Britain, the livers of poultry are considered a very high relish by our continental neighbours; and the following directions how to procure them in perfection, we copy from the recipe of “un Vieil Amateur de Bonne Chère.”
“The liver of a duck, or a goose, which has submitted to the rules and orders that men of taste have invented for the amusement of his sebaceous glands, is a superlative exquisite to the palate of a Parisian epicure; but, alas! the poor goose, to produce this darling dainty, must endure sad torments. He must be crammed with meat, deprived of drink, and kept constantly before a hot fire: a miserable martyrdom indeed! and would be truly intolerable if his reflections on the consequences of his sufferings did not afford him some consolation; but the glorious prospect of the delightful growth of his liver gives him courage and support; and when he thinks how speedily it will become almost as big as his body, how high it will rank on the list of double relishes, and with what ecstasies it will be eaten by the fanciers “des Foies gras,” he submits to his destiny without a sigh. The famous Strasburg pies are made with livers thus prepared, and sell for an enormous price.”
However incredible this ordonnance for the obesitation of a goose’s liver may appear at first sight, will it not seem equally so to after-ages, that in this enlightened country, in 1821, we encouraged a folly as much greater, as its operation was more universal? Will it be believed, that it was then considered the acme of perfection in beef and mutton, that it should be so over-fattened, that a poor man, to obtain one pound of meat that he could eat, must purchase another which he could not, unless converted into a suet pudding: moreover, that the highest premiums were annually awarded to those who produced sheep and oxen in the most extreme stale of morbid obesity?!!
——“expensive plans
For deluging of dripping-pans.”
[141-*] This, in culinary technicals, is called casing it upon the same principle that “eating, drinking, and sleeping,” are termed non-naturals.