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Blackcock, Roasted
This bird is hard, dry, and flavourless, if not well hung; but the flavour is remarkably fine when it has been kept until it shows some little symptom of having been hung enough. Pick and draw, but do not wash the inside; a dry cloth will be all that is necessary. Truss it like a fowl. Some like the head under the wing, but the former mode is most general. Place it before a brisk fire, and baste unsparingly with butter till done. It will take nearly one hour if a fine male bird, but three-quarters of an hour will be enough for one of moderate size. Dip a piece of thick toast into a little lemon-juice, and lay it in the dripping-pan under the bird ten minutes before it is to be taken from the fire. Serve with the toast under, and a rich brown gravy and bread sauce. Probable cost, 5s. 6d. to 6s. per brace.
A spit-roasting recipe for the male black grouse, written when game came into the kitchen feathered, undrawn and hung. The instructions translate to an oven readily enough; sourcing the bird is the harder part.
- The bird itselfBlackcock is the male black grouse (Tetrao tetrix, now often Lyrurus tetrix), a bird of moorland edge and birch scrub weighing roughly 2-3 lb dressed. It is red-listed in Britain and, though technically still a quarry species in Scotland with a season, shooting is widely subject to voluntary restraint and the bird rarely if ever reaches the market. Red grouse, or a young pheasant of similar weight, is the sensible stand-in.
- "Well hung" means what it saysThe whole premise here is a bird aged in the feather until the flavour deepens. Modern game dealers hang for a few days under refrigeration rather than the week or more a Victorian larder allowed. Buy from a dealer already hung and plucked; do not attempt extended ambient hanging at home.
- A brisk fireSpit-roasting before an open fire cooked by radiant heat from one side. In a conventional oven, a hot setting of around 425F (220C) gives roughly comparable browning. The bird is lean, so the constant basting is not optional.
- Timing, revisedAn hour will overcook a modern 2-3 lb grouse to dryness; 30-40 minutes is usually enough, with a 10 minute rest. Game birds of this sort are traditionally served pink at the breast at about 145-150F (63-65C) in the thickest part, but that is below the 165F (74C) generally advised for poultry; cook to 165F if you want the safe figure.
- Do not wash the cavitySound advice then and now, for different reasons: water leaches flavour and prevents browning. Wipe out with a dry cloth or kitchen paper.
- The toastThe lemon-dipped toast under the bird catches the drippings. Put it in the pan for the last 10 minutes, as the recipe directs, so it crisps rather than steams; a thick slice of firm white bread is what is meant.
- Trussing and the head"Truss it like a fowl" means legs drawn close and wings pinned to the body so it holds shape. The head tucked under the wing was an alternative presentation, which the book notes was the less general of the two; birds now come headless.
- Accompaniments and yieldBread sauce and a brown gravy made from the giblets and pan juices are the standard pairing, with fried breadcrumbs and game chips if you want the full Victorian service. A brace serves four; one bird serves two.
- The price5s. 6d. to 6s. per brace was a substantial sum for a household of the 1870s-80s, comparable to a day's wage or more for many working men. This was a dish for a table that could afford game.
"Blackcock" is the sportsman's name for the male black grouse, the female being the greyhen; the male's lyre-shaped tail and communal spring display, or lek, made it one of the most recognisable birds of the British moor. Cassell's places it among the roast game because the shooting season, opening on 20 August, supplied gentry and hotel kitchens through the autumn, and because a bird that arrived feathered and unhung was a test of a cook's judgement rather than a purchase off the counter. The insistence that it be hung is the whole point of the entry: black grouse feeds heavily on shoots, buds and heather, and unaged the flesh really is, as the book says, hard and flavourless. Numbers have fallen sharply across Britain since the nineteenth century with the loss of moorland-edge habitat, and the bird is now a conservation concern rather than a common item of the game dealer's list, which makes this page a fair record of how much the ordinary Victorian larder differed from ours.