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Larded Grouse
Turn the legs over and free them from the body. Cut slices down to the bone the entire length of the breast; then slip the knife under and remove the slices. Cut off the wing and leg, and separate the back-bone from the body. There are some morsels on the back which are considered choice by those who like the peculiar flavor of this game. As this is a dry meat, help generously to the bread sauce which should always accompany it. Where this is the principal dish, or where a larger portion is required, divide it through the breast, as directed for small pigeons. Woodcock, Snipe, and other Small Birds are usually served whole. But if only a portion be desired, divide them through the breast.
RABBIT.
A rabbit should be trussed, with the forelegs turned toward the back, and the hind legs forward. Place it on the platter with the back up and head at the left. Remove the shoulders by cutting round between them and the body, carrying the knife up nearly to the back-bone. Turn them back and cut through the joint. Remove the hind legs in the same manner. Then place the fork in the middle of the back and cut several slices from each side of the loin parallel with the backbone. The loin is the choicest part.
Carving small game, and almost every instruction here is a response to the same two facts: the meat is dry, and there is not much of it.
- Larding, and whyThe bird was threaded with strips of pork fat before roasting because, as the page says outright, this is a dry meat. If you are not larding, lay fat bacon over the breast and tie it, or wrap the bird in caul. The fat has to be on or in the bird during cooking; adding butter afterwards is not the same operation.
- Bread sauce is not a garnishThe page tells the carver to help generously to it, and the reason is moisture. Bread sauce is milk infused with onion and clove and thickened with soft crumbs, and with a dry roasted game bird it is doing the job a pan sauce would do for anything else.
- Slice the breast on the bone, then lift itLong cuts down to the bone the whole length of the breast, then the knife slipped underneath to free them. A modern kitchen takes the whole breast off in one piece. The page slices because the bird is being shared out, and the number of slices is how many people it reaches.
- Or split itIf one person is to have a proper helping, divide the bird through the breast instead. That is the same cut a modern cook makes on a spatchcocked bird, arrived at from the opposite direction.
- Rabbit: the loin is the prizeShoulders off first by cutting round them up to the backbone, then the hind legs, then slices from each side of the loin parallel with the backbone. The page says plainly which part the table wanted. A butcher will sell you the saddle on its own, which is the same judgement expressed as a price.
The quiet line is the one about the morsels on the back, which are considered choice by those who like the peculiar flavour of this game. The carver was expected to know which guests those were. Carving at table was an act of distribution as much as of butchery — who got breast, who got back, who got the loin — and a page like this is teaching a host to divide a scarce and unequal thing among named people without appearing to make a decision at all.