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Hare, to Truss A
Clean the vent, and rinse it well with lukewarm water. Wipe the inside, fill it with forcemeat, and sew it up securely. Cut off the forelegs at the first joint, and the sinews under the legs, and bring both the hind and fore-legs forward towards the head. Fasten them close to the body with a skewer run through them and the body as well. Keep the head back with a skewer put in the mouth through the head, and between the shoulders. Skin the ears, and leave them entire. Pass a string round the body, from skewer to skewer, and fasten it over the back.
A preparation step rather than a finished dish: this is how a Victorian cook shaped a whole hare, stuffed and head-on, for the roasting spit or oven. Almost everything about it assumes a butcher who sold hares whole and undressed.
- What you are starting withThe hare is assumed to be already skinned and paunched, with the head, ears and feet still attached. Modern game dealers will sell a hare skinned and gutted; specify head-on if you want to follow this literally, as it is not always supplied that way.
- "Clean the vent"This means rinsing out the rear end after the animal has been drawn. Wild game handling calls for the usual care: cold water, a scrupulous board, and hands and surfaces washed before anything else touches them.
- The forcemeatThe recipe does not say what the forcemeat is. A typical Victorian veal forcemeat is breadcrumbs, chopped suet, herbs, lemon peel and egg to bind, sometimes with the hare's own liver, parboiled and minced. Pack it loosely, since it swells.
- Skewers and stringThe "skewer" here is a long trussing skewer, driven right through the carcass. Two flat metal skewers and butcher's twine do the same job; the string laced from skewer to skewer over the back is what keeps the legs from springing out.
- The head and earsBracing the head back with a skewer through the mouth serves presentation rather than cooking, for a game course served whole. The skinned ears were left on and were regarded as a delicacy; they scorch easily, and buttered paper was one way of protecting them.
- Age matters more than the recipe admitsOnly a young hare, or leveret, is worth roasting this way. An older animal has tough sinew and dense muscle and belongs in a jugged or braised dish; the trussing described here will not soften it.
- YieldA whole hare with forcemeat will feed a table as a main course. The saddle carries most of the good meat; the forelegs are sinewy, though this recipe trusses them onto the carcass with the rest.
A Victorian kitchen was expected to receive game in the feather or the fur and make it presentable itself — trussing was a taught hand skill, like larding or boning, not a recipe. Hare was one of the strictly regulated game animals in nineteenth-century Britain, arriving in season from an estate, a poulterer or a poacher, and was hung by the hind legs for several days before being skinned, a practice generally said to deepen its already strong, faintly liver-like flavour. Serving the beast whole with the head raised and the ears crisped was a deliberate display of the game course, in the same tradition as the boar's head and the peacock in its plumage; it is the reason the instructions fuss so much about the mouth skewer and the entire ears, details that have nothing to do with how the meat cooks. The habit faded with the whole-carcass game course itself, and most modern cooks meet hare jointed, in a jug or a ragù.