Plovers
The best are the golden plovers. They used to be, and often still are, roasted without being drawn-as were also turtledoves and larks; "for," says an ancient author, "larks eat only pebbles and sand, doves grains o juniper and scented herbs, and plovers feed on air." Later the same rule was extended to the woodcock; and the general rule now is to dress the plover as a woodcock. Plovers' Eggs must not be forgotten-delicious little things hard-boiled, exquisite in a salad, perfect in a sandwich, most admirable of all set like large opals in the midst of aspic jelly. The chief supply comes from Holland The first eggs that come over are sent to the Queen, and are worth 7s. 6d. apiece.
PLUMS have a wide range of meaning. I innæus included under the name, not only plums proper, but cherries and apricots; and when we speak of a plum-pudding we extend the designation to raisins. The plums best known have each a special name: as Orleans, Greengage, Magnum Bonum, Damson, Mirabelle, and so forth. It is a pity to cook them when they are sweet and ripe, unless with a view to preserve them; but there will always be young people in the world, and old people with youthful tastes, to whom stewed plums and plum tarts will never come amiss Plum Pudding Plum Sauce. Stone about a pint of Orleans plums, and stir them to a mash over a brisk fire, with a quarter-pint of water and a quarter-pound of sugar. Then pass them through a sieve, and use them as a sauce for pudding. Other plums may be used in the same way-not to speak of peaches, nectarines and apricots.
The entry is mostly reference material on plovers and plums, but it closes with a genuine recipe: a plain stewed-plum sauce for pudding. The notes below cover that sauce, plus what has changed in the surrounding text.
- The plover material cannot be acted onThe plover material cannot simply be acted on -- lapwing (peewit) is fully protected in Britain, and taking the eggs of wild birds is illegal here and in EU states; the birds are also covered in North America by migratory-bird law. Golden plover, by contrast, remains a listed quarry species in Britain with an open season, though shooting it is widely discouraged. Read these lines chiefly as social history; the only part of the page anyone will cook is the plum sauce.
- Undrawn birdsThe old practice of roasting plovers, woodcock and larks with the intestines left in rested on the belief that these birds ate only clean things. It is not a food-safety principle anyone would extend to modern poultry or game handling.
- A pint of plumsThe wording leaves it unclear whether the pint is measured before or after stoning; either way take it as roughly a pound (about 450 g) of fruit. The quarter-pint of water is an imperial quarter-pint, 5 fl oz, or about two-thirds of a US cup.
- Orleans plumsA dark red-purple European plum, once common in English gardens and now rare in shops. Italian prune plums, damsons or Victorias all behave the same way; damsons are sharper and may want a little more sugar.
- A brisk fireMedium-high heat, and the pan wants watching. A quarter-pound of sugar in a quarter-pint of water catches quickly once the fruit collapses and the mixture thickens, so stir from the base of the pan throughout.
- Why a sieve and not a blenderPassing the pulp through a sieve removes the skins, which stay leathery however long they cook, and gives the smooth glossy body the sauce is meant to have. A blender pulverises the skins into the sauce and leaves it dull and slightly gritty.
- BalanceA quarter-pound of sugar to a pint of fruit is a firm sweetness aimed at plain steamed puddings. With ripe supermarket plums a squeeze of lemon at the end keeps it from cloying.
- Yield and keepingThe finished quantity is not stated; expect somewhere between a cup and a pint of sauce once the skins are sieved out. It thickens as it cools and will keep a few days refrigerated.
Kettner's Book of the Table (1877), written anonymously by the journalist E. S. Dallas and named for August Kettner's Soho restaurant, is arranged as an alphabetical dictionary, which is why plovers, plovers' eggs and plums share a page with no connection beyond the letter P. The eggs are the period detail worth pausing on: what the Victorian trade called plovers' eggs were mostly lapwing eggs, gathered in the Dutch polders and shipped to London as one of the first luxuries of spring, and 7s. 6d. apiece put a single egg well beyond most households. A separate Dutch custom does survive in Friesland, where the first lapwing egg found is still ceremonially reported to the provincial authorities, though collecting was curtailed by court ruling in 2015. The plum notes reflect a period when named garden varieties, not supermarket stock, defined what a cook had to work with, and the throwaway remark that Linnaeus filed cherries and apricots alongside plums is botanically sound: all are species of Prunus.