No. 2165

Thrushes in the Saucepan

Grives a la Casserole

Pick and singe one dozen thrushes; remove the gizzard and pouch without drawing them, truss for roasting and fry in butter in an earthenware saucepan over a brisk fire. When done remove them from the saucepan, untruss and dress in a circle on a hot dish, the legs lying inwards; add to their stock a little game glaze (No. 398), some clear gravy (No. 404), the juice of a lemon, and a small pinch of chopped parsley. Pour the sauce over the birds, and serve.

← No. 2164 Baked Thrushes Quail, Snipe, Woodcock & Small Birds No. 2166 Thrushes and Robins, Roasted and Broiled →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a dish that has been legislated out of existence across most of the world, and the points below explain the specific obstacles rather than how to get around them.

Thrushes are protected birdsSong thrushes, redwings, fieldfares and their American relatives (robins, wood thrush, hermit thrush) are protected songbirds. In the United States the Migratory Bird Treaty Act makes it an offence to take, possess or sell them, and the UK Wildlife and Countryside Act protects the song thrush and its relatives. Within the EU the Birds Directive permits limited hunting of some thrush species in certain southern member states, but there is no ordinary commercial supply and no game dealer in Britain or North America can furnish them.
The birds are cooked undrawnThe instruction removes only the gizzard and the crop (the "pouch"), leaving the intestines in place to melt into the flesh — the classic treatment for small game birds. That practice depends on a freshly shot wild bird whose gut contents are berries and insects, and it carries a real risk of intestinal pathogens and of contamination from lead shot fragments driven through the body cavity.
Casserole means the panIn 1894 à la casserole signals the vessel, not a baked dish. The recipe calls for a glazed earthenware pan set directly over the flame, which holds and radiates heat more gently than copper and lets the birds colour without scorching.
Game glaze and clear gravyNo. 398 and No. 404 are cross-references to the book's own preparations, a game glaze and a clear gravy. Together with lemon and parsley they make a very short pan sauce — the recipe assumes a stockpot already running in a professional kitchen, not a home cook opening a carton.
"Brisk fire"High heat throughout. The recipe gives no cooking time, only "when done", and there is no covered stage: the birds are simply fried in butter.
If you want the dishUse a current recipe for a legally farmed bird. This one should be read rather than cooked.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894) records the kitchen of Delmonico's in New York at a moment when American fine dining was a direct transcription of French practice, small songbirds included. Thrushes — grives — were a staple of French provincial cooking, particularly in the southwest and in Corsica, where autumn migrants fattened on berries and grapes were considered the finest eating of the year; the habit of cooking them undrawn, trail and all, was held to concentrate that diet in the flesh. Ranhofer's neighbouring entries for roasted and broiled robins show how routinely native American songbirds were treated the same way. Market hunting of wild birds was among the pressures behind the Lacey Act of 1900 and, later, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which ended the commercial trade in songbirds in the United States within a generation of this book's publication. The recipe survives as a record of what a great restaurant kitchen took for granted, and of how quickly that assumption was withdrawn.