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Larks, Broiled
Pick and clean a dozen larks, cut off their heads and legs, truss them firmly, rub them over with beaten egg, and strew bread-crumbs and a small pinch of salt over them. Broil them over a clear fire, and serve them on toasted bread. Time, ten minutes. Probable cost, 2s. Sufficient for five or six persons.
The method here is straightforward broiling, but the bird at its centre is no longer a legal food in Britain, Europe or North America. The notes below explain what the recipe assumes and why it cannot be followed now.
- The bird is protectedThe skylark and its near relatives are protected wild birds under the UK Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the EU Birds Directive, and native larks are covered in the United States by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Taking, killing, selling or possessing them is an offence, whatever the cooking method. Use a current recipe for a farmed bird instead.
- No legal supply existsVictorian poulterers sold larks by the dozen from netted wild stock; there is no farmed equivalent and no lawful commercial source in these jurisdictions. A recipe of this kind cannot be sourced honestly today.
- "Pick and clean"This means plucking and cleaning the birds, with heads and feet removed, then trussing each one so the legs sit tight against the body. The instruction to "pick" implies the birds were bought still in feather.
- Probable cost, 2sTwo shillings for twelve dressed birds, feeding five or six: about twopence a bird.
- "Broil" and "a clear fire"Broiling here is grilling over the coals of a fire that has burned down past smoke and flame, so the crumbs colour without catching. It is the direct ancestor of the modern overhead grill, not of oven roasting.
- Ten minutesThe short time reflects how little meat is on the carcass. Egg-and-crumb coatings on a live fire scorch quickly, which is why the recipe insists the fire be clear rather than blazing.
Small songbirds were an ordinary part of the European table for centuries, and lark in particular appears in English cookery books from the medieval period onward, usually spitted, potted in butter, or baked in pies of a dozen or more. Cassell's places this among a run of similar entries because the birds were netted in large numbers on open downland in autumn and winter and sold cheaply by the dozen; Dunstable in Bedfordshire was long associated with the trade, and "Dunstable larks" is a name that recurs in nineteenth-century menus and market reports. The scale of that netting, repeated across Britain and the Continent, is one of the reasons bird protection legislation began to appear in the later nineteenth century, culminating in the statutes that make the dish illegal now. The recipe is worth reading as a record of a food once common enough to pass without comment, and of how quickly such a food can become an unlawful one.