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Wild Fowl, Roast

It is an old and true figurative saying that a wild duck to be properly roasted should only walk through the kitchen, that the widgeon should run gently through, but that the teal scould scamper through. All these birds must therefore be very little done. If they are of a kind that is usually impregnated with a fishy flavour, which is most inveterate when they are not fat, they should be soaked in and rubbed with a little tarragon vinegar a few hours prior to being put upon the spit. The sauce for wild fowl is served, not in the dish, but in a tureen. It is thus made. Put into a saucepan a quarter of a pint of port wine, the same quantity of meat gravy, two or three shallots, a bit of mace, pepper and salt according to taste, and a dash of cayenne. Let it simmer ten minutes, then squeeze into it the juice of half a lemon, and thicken it with butter rolled in flour.