No. 2118

Plovers Broiled

Pluviers Grilles

Split them lengthwise in two through the back, open and flatten (see broiled woodcock, No.2204); season with salt and pepper, coat them with oil and broil in a double gridiron; dress on croutons of basted bread, cover with maitre-d'hotel butter (No.581) and serve.

← No. 2117 Plovers a la Victor Hugo—Breasts Quail, Snipe, Woodcock & Small Birds No. 2119 Plovers Roasted →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

The technique here is straightforward broiling; the obstacle is the bird. Plovers are no longer legal game in the United States, Canada or the United Kingdom, and wild-caught birds cannot be bought or shot for the table.

The bird is protectedAll North American plovers — golden, black-bellied, semipalmated, killdeer and the rest — are covered by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which makes taking, possessing or selling them an offence. The piping plover is additionally listed as endangered or threatened depending on the population. In Britain and Europe most plovers are protected, though the golden plover remains a quarry species with a legal open season in the UK. Ranhofer's era of market gunning for shorebirds is precisely what those laws were written to end.
No lawful supplyThere is no farmed plover, and in North America nothing sold as "plover" will be a true plover. If you want to cook this style of small bird, use a current recipe for farmed quail or squab from a licensed supplier and leave the wild shorebirds alone.
Double gridironA hinged wire broiler that clamps the split bird flat between two grids so it can be turned in one motion over the coals. Modern equivalents are sold as fish or hamburger grill baskets.
Croutons of basted breadNot croutons in the salad sense: slices of bread trimmed to the size of the bird, brushed or basted with the drippings and fat, then crisped. They catch the juices at the table.
Maître d'hôtel butterRanhofer's No. 581 is butter worked with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper. It is essentially the same preparation used in kitchens today and needs no translation.
Split through the backThe spatchcock cut Ranhofer cross-references to his broiled woodcock: the backbone is opened rather than the breast, so the breast meat stays intact and the bird lies flat under pressure.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) records the menu of Delmonico's in New York at the height of the American shorebird trade, when golden and black-bellied plover arrived in city markets by the barrel each spring and autumn and appeared on restaurant cards alongside snipe, woodcock and reedbird. Charles Ranhofer gives plovers three consecutive treatments — à la Victor Hugo, broiled, and roasted — which tells you how routine the bird was rather than how special. That abundance did not last: market hunting collapsed shorebird populations within a generation, the Eskimo curlew was hunted effectively to extinction, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 closed the trade entirely. Recipes like this one now read as a record of a food supply that no longer exists, which is much of what makes the book worth reading.