[141-†] Mrs. Charlotte Mason, in her “Complete System of Cookery,” page 283, says, she has “tried all the different things recommended to baste a hare with, and never found any thing so good as small beer;” others order milk; drippings we believe is better than any thing. To roast a hare nicely, so as to preserve the meat on the back, &c. juicy and nutritive, requires as much attention as a sucking-pig.
Instead of washing, a “grand Cuisinier” says, it is much better to wipe a hare with a thin, dry cloth, as so much washing, or indeed washing at all, takes away the flavour.
[142-*] Liver sauce, Nos. [287] and [288].
[142-†] “They are only fit to be eaten when the blood runs from the bill, which is commonly about 6 or 7 days after they have been killed, otherwise it will have no more savour than a common fowl.”—Ude’s Cookery, 8vo. 1819, page 216.
“Gastronomers, who have any sort of aversion to a peculiar taste in game, properly kept, had better abstain from this bird, since it is worse than a common fowl, if not waited for till it acquires the fumet it ought to have. Whole republics of maggots have often been found rioting under the wings of pheasants; but being radically dispersed, and the birds properly washed with vinegar, every thing went right, and every guest, unconscious of the culinary ablutions, enjoyed the excellent flavour of the Phasian birds.”—Tabella Cibaria, p. 55.
[144-*] “This bird has so insinuated itself into the favour of refined gourmands, that they pay it the same honours as the grand Lama, making a ragoût of its excrements, and devouring them with ecstasy.”—Vide Almanach des Gourmands, vol. i. p. 56.
That exercise produces strength and firmness of fibre is excellently well exemplified in the woodcock and the partridge. The former flies most—the latter walks; the wing of the woodcock is always very tough,—of the partridge very tender hence the old doggerel distich,—
“If the partridge had but the woodcock’s thigh,
He’d be the best bird that e’er doth fly.”
The breast of all birds is the most juicy and nutritious part.