Home › The Principles of Cookery › Plovers, Fried, with Truffles
Plovers, Fried, with Truffles
Pluck four plovers, and truss them as if for coasting. Lay them breast downwards in a stewpan, with four ounces of fresh butter and seven or eight raw truffles which have been washed perfectly clean, wiped, pared very thin, and cut into slices about the size of a penny. Add two cloves, a bay-leaf, and a little salt and pepper. Stir the whole gently over a sharp fire for ten minutes, then pour in a pint of stock which has been smoothly mixed with a dessert-spoonful of flour, and a glass of sherry. Simmer gently by the side of the fire for twenty minutes, and skim the liquid carefully. Place the birds on a hot dish. Boil the sauce quickly till it is thick and smooth, flavour with the strained juice of a lemon, add a small lump of sugar and half a tea-spoonful of browning, and pour it hot over the birds; serve immediately. Time, half an hour. Probable cost, plovers, 2s. 6d. per brace. Sufficient for five or six people.
This is a game recipe built around a bird that can no longer legally be taken or sold in Britain, Europe or North America. The notes below explain the legal and practical obstacles rather than adapting the method.
- The birds are protectedGrey plover and lapwing (the "green plover" of Victorian game lists) are fully protected under UK wildlife law, and all plovers are protected in the United States under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Golden plover remains a quarry species in Britain within a set season, and is huntable in some European countries, but its sale is prohibited. Several populations are in serious decline. A brace at "2s. 6d." belonged to a market that no longer exists.
- Trussed "as if for coasting"Almost certainly a misprint for roasting. Plover, like woodcock and snipe, was commonly trussed whole and cooked undrawn with the trail left in, which is part of why the flesh was prized; this recipe gives no instruction to draw them, and the practice sits outside any modern food-handling standard.
- Raw truffles by the half-dozenSeven or eight raw truffles pared and sliced would today cost many times the price of the whole dish. Fresh black winter truffle runs to hundreds of pounds or dollars a kilo, and preserved truffle behaves quite differently, losing most of its aroma to the twenty-minute simmer.
- "Browning"A burnt-sugar caramel colouring used to darken gravies, sometimes with onion or spice added, either bought bottled or made at home. Gravy browning of the same type is still sold, but the half-teaspoon here is purely cosmetic.
- A glass of sherryAn unfixed Victorian measure, usually reckoned at about 2 fluid ounces, roughly a quarter cup, though glass sizes varied. The recipe gives no guidance beyond the word.
- By the side of the fireRange cooking depended on zones of a coal fire: the "sharp fire" is the hot centre plate, the side of the fire a gentle heat for the twenty-minute simmer. A stovetop has to be adjusted by dial instead of by position.
- If you want the dishUse a current recipe for a legally sold farmed game bird from a reputable supplier, written to modern handling and temperature practice.
Plover appears throughout nineteenth-century English cookery books as a luxury of the same rank as woodcock, snipe and ortolan — small, dark-fleshed, sold by the brace, and often cooked undrawn on the grounds that the bird fed only on clean matter. Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery, issued in parts from the 1870s and later reissued in revised form as the New Dictionary of Cookery, catalogued the whole game list as a matter of course, and its "probable cost" figures record a market in wild-caught birds that supplied London poulterers in quantity, plovers' eggs included. That trade was progressively closed off: the Wild Birds Protection Acts of the late Victorian period began the process, and modern statute in both Britain and the United States brought the commercial trade in wild-caught plover to an end, though golden plover remains a legal quarry bird in Britain in season. Recipes like this one now read as a record of how much of the wild landscape once passed through the kitchen, and of how thoroughly the truffle — here treated as a bulk vegetable, pared and sliced by the handful — has shifted from a seasonal country ingredient to a rationed garnish.