This week’s Tasty Tuesday discussion is going to the birds… literally! I was just a little surprised at the many ways Hannah Glasse suggests for preparing a range of birds.
She has recipes for roasting a turkey, with three variations. The first includes loosening the breast skin and using force-meat balls as a kind of stuffing. She has recipes for mushroom sauce for white fowls of all sorts and for boiled fowl. Even a recipe for celery sauce or egg sauce for roasted or boiled “Fowls, Turkies, Patridges, or any other Game.” Want to know how to “force a Fowl”? She provides instructions for broiling and stewing chickens – I’ll try the stewing recipe in a couple of weeks.
There’s also a recipe for “Chickens with tongues” and instructions for how “To boil a Duck or a Rabbit with Onions.” I’ll also be trying to learn how “To dress a Duck with green peas” before too long. I say “try” because I think I’ve only ever made duckling once in my life and I have no recollection of how I cooked it or what we thought of the result!
I could have chosen to roast a goose, or boil, jug, or stew pigeons. Then there are the more extravagant birds, at least in our day and age: roasting partridges, pheasant, snipes, woodcocks, larks, and plovers, “Ruffs and Reiss.” These last two are what Mrs. Glasse calls “Lincolnshire birds” but I couldn’t find any information on the Reiss at the Audubon Society or through a Google search. If you happen to know what they are, I’d love to know!
The various ways of handling the birds are similar to today, but the birds themselves have changed. At least in my little world! That’s one reason I chose to make the duck with peas recipe, to expand my repertoire of poultry recipes. But my first fowl recipe will be the “Brown Fricasey with chicken” that should be interesting to try. So stop by next week and see how my efforts turn out.
Have you cooked any of the more exotic birds, like plover or snipe? (And here I thought snipes were mythical!)
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Evelyn is a fantastic cook, and even makes tempting hot cross buns as a treat in Evelyn’s Promise…
In 1782, the fight for independence becomes personal in the port city Charles Town, South Carolina.
Determined to make her own way in the newly independent America and live free of the dictates and demands of another husband, widow Evelyn Hamilton faces soaring post-war inflation as she struggles to provide for herself and her infant son.
Militiaman Nathaniel Williams visits Charlestown, where his heart is ensnared by a smart, beautiful widow, forcing Nathaniel to make the hardest decision of his life.
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Betty Bolte's Musings 
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