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Poultry and Game

You might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course. -CHARLES DICKENS: A Christmas Carol.

POULTRY, which includes chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, guineas, or the domestic birds, has nutritive value in near amount to that of beef and mutton, and affords a very desirable variety in diet. Chickens are fowls less than a year old. In marketing, see that the bird is plump and not unduly fat. The skin should be clear and free from blotches, and the flesh firm. Chickens have soft feet, soft breast bone, and a great many pin feathers; older fowls have rough feet, rigid breast bone, and coarse hairy skin. A spring chicken should be chosen for broiling or frying; a young chicken for roasting; a fowl for stewing. Capons are considered the choicest of poultry; in selecting a turkey, the "gobbler" is usually considered the better eating.