No. 784

Eggs, Bustard, Plover and Sea-Gull

Œufs de Vanneaux, de Pluviers et de Mouettes

Oil over some small crimped paper cases, one inch in diameter, lay them upside down on a grater and push in the oven to stiffen without coloring, set them away to cool, then fill as high as the top through a pocket garnished with fresh butter, or else lobster butter (No. 580), or even half of each. Lay in the middle of each case a bustard's egg, after boiling it and removing the shell. In order to cook these eggs, they must be put in cold water and boiled for eight minutes, then cooled off, and the shell broken gently, remove and wash the egg well. Dress the cases crown-shaped on a dish, and garnish the center either with water-cress or else very green parsley stalks.

← No. 783 Cucumbers, Fresh Sliced, in Fillets or Salte Cold Side Dishes No. 785 Gherkins →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

A cold hors d'oeuvre from Delmonico's: tiny buttered paper cases, each holding a single hard-boiled wild bird's egg. The technique is straightforward; the ingredient is the problem.

The eggs are the obstacleLapwing (vanneau), plover and gull eggs are the eggs of wild birds. In the United States plovers and gulls fall under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which makes taking or possessing their eggs an offence; in Britain lapwing eggs have been protected by statute since the early twentieth century, with full protection later in the century, and gull egg collection survives only under narrow licence. This is not a dish a modern cook can source legally, and a current recipe should be used instead.
"Bustard's egg" is a translation errorThe French title reads œufs de vanneaux — lapwing, the peewit or green plover. The English text renders it "bustard," a different and much larger bird; how the error entered the English text is not known. An egg of bustard size would not sit in a one-inch case.
"A pocket"The nineteenth-century term for a piping bag. The butter is worked soft and piped level with the rim of the case, not spooned in.
Lobster butter, No. 580A cross-reference to Ranhofer's lobster butter, a compound butter of pounded lobster worked with fresh butter and passed through a sieve. The recipe offers plain butter, lobster butter, or half of each.
Stiffening the casesOiled paper cases inverted on a grater and dried in the oven are being set into shape, not baked. The book gives no temperature; the instruction "without coloring" is the whole point — the paper must not brown.
Eight minutesTimed from cold water — enough to firm the yolk so the egg survives shelling, washing and handling.
Dressing crown-shapedThe cases are arranged in a ring around the edge of a round dish with the cress or parsley stalks heaped in the well at the centre. It is a service pattern that recurs throughout the cold side dishes in this book.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a record of what a first-class American restaurant kitchen could do, and its cold side dishes lean heavily on French luxuries. Plover and lapwing eggs were among the most conspicuous of these: gathered in spring, chiefly from Dutch and English meadows, packed in moss and sold at high prices in London and Paris for a season of only a few weeks. Their small size, speckled shells and rich yolks made them a fixture of Victorian and Edwardian club and hotel menus, usually served cold and barely dressed, so that the egg itself did the work. Egg-collecting was one pressure on lapwing numbers in northwest Europe, though the later declines are chiefly attributed to changes in farming; protective legislation in the twentieth century closed the trade. Recipes like this one now read as a record of a habit that ended rather than a dish anyone can cook.