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Peacock

This beautiful and majestic bird has been introduced on the table both by the ancients and the moderns, but chiefly as a showy and ornamental dish, the bird being preserved in some of its handsome plumage. The flesh is coarse and ill-coloured. "Kill a peacock," says Bapista Porta, an old-time chef, "by thrusting a quill into his brain, or else cut his throat as you do for young kids, that the blood may come forth; then cut his skin gently from the throat to his tail, and, being cut, pull it off with his feathers from his whole body to his head; cut that off with the skin and legs, and keep it. Roast the peacock on a spit, his body being stuffed with spices and sweet herbs, first sticking cloves in his breast, and wrapping his neck in white cloth. When the peacock is roasted and taken from the spit, put him into his own skin again, and that he may appear to stand on his feet, you shall thrust small iron wires through his legs, and set fast on board that they may not be discerned, and through his body to his head and tail. Some put camphire in his mouth, and when he is set on the table they cast in fire."