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Forequarter of Lamb or Veal
This is a difficult joint for a beginner, but after a little study and practice one may manipulate it with dexterity. Some time when a lamb stew or fricassee is to be prepared, study the joint carefully and practise cutting it up, and thus become familiar with the position of the shoulder-blade joint,--the only one difficult to reach. The backbone should always be disjointed. The ribs should be divided across the breast and at the junction of the breast-bone, and the butcher should also remove the shoulder-blade and the bone in the leg. Unless the joint be very young and tender, it is better to use the breast portion for a stew or fricassee; but when nice and tender the breast may be roasted with the other portions, as the choice gelatinous morsels near the breast-bones are preferred by many. This joint consists of three portions,--the shoulder or knuckle, the breast or brisket, and the ribs. Put it on the platter with the backbone up. Put the fork in near the knuckle. Cut through the flesh clear round the leg and well up on the shoulder, but not too far on the breast. With the fork lift the leg away from the shoulder, cutting in till you come to the joint, after separating which, remove the leg to a separate dish, to be afterward cut into thin slices through the thickest part. Cut across from left to right where the ribs have been broken, separating the gristly breast from the upper portion. Then remove the blade if it has not been done before cooking. Divide each of these portions between the ribs, and serve a piece of the rib, the breast, or a slice from the leg, as preferred.
A whole forequarter, roasted in one piece and then separated at the table into three different sorts of meat. The page is honest that this is the hard one, and its first instruction is the most useful thing in it.
- Give the butcher the listDisjoint the backbone, divide the ribs across the breast and at the breast-bone, take out the shoulder-blade and the bone in the leg. Every one of those is a cut to be made before cooking rather than at the table, and a butcher will do all of it if asked. Carving a forequarter is mostly a matter of what was prepared beforehand.
- Three grades of meat in one jointShoulder or knuckle, breast or brisket, and ribs. They are different meats with different textures, and the page assumes the carver hands a rib to one guest, a slice from the leg to another and a piece of breast to a third according to what each prefers.
- Practise on a stewThe book tells you to study the joint and cut it up the next time a stew or fricassee is wanted, in private, to learn where the shoulder-blade joint runs. That is still exactly how to learn it, and it costs nothing but attention.
- The gelatinous morselsThe page prizes the soft connective tissue near the breast-bones and says many prefer it. A modern cook would agree, and would cook the breast longer and lower than the rest to reach it. That is the argument for the page’s other suggestion: treat the breast separately, braised or stewed, unless the animal is very young.
- Veal, realisticallyA forequarter of veal is effectively unobtainable now, and shoulder is the cut that survives, usually sold boned. For lamb, ask for the shoulder and the breast together if you want to attempt the joint as the page describes it.
Notice how the book frames carving: a difficult joint for a beginner, but after a little study and practice one may manipulate it with dexterity. That is the language of a craft, learned by repetition and rehearsed out of sight before being performed in company. The page is not teaching a cook. It is teaching whoever will stand up at the table with a knife in front of guests, and it expects them to go and practise on a stewing joint first.