FOOD AND FLAVOR 



235 



fore, when too extensive, they are not usually coiiduiive to maintaining large grouse 

 populations. Many small slashings widely scattered and of different age classes are to be 

 preferred to a few areas occupying many acres. 



FOOD AND FLAVOR 



One of the few points of general agreement among those who hunt the grouse is that its 

 flesh is exceedingly palatable when properly cooked. Many an early author has ascribed 

 this to a particular liking which the bird is supposed to exhibit for leaves and twigs of 

 a pungent flavor. Eaton'" lists "wintergreen, mint, sorrel, birch and various kinds of ber- 

 ries which impart a peculiar gamey flavor to its flesh". Maine birds, according to 

 Mathews'^', "are particularly fond of the buds of the black birch which give their flesh a 

 peculiar and very agreeable flavor". That this is not a new thought is proved by Alexander 

 Wilson's'"", statement in 1812 that, "The 'pheasant" is in best order for the table in Sep- 

 tember and October. In this season they feed chiefly on whortleberries and the little red 

 aromatic partridge-berries, the last of which gives their flesh a peculiar delicate flavour". 



Additional backing for the food flavoring flesh idea, though with a diflcrcnt meaning, 

 comes from Elliott"', who indicated that "its flesh, as is well known, is light and tender, 

 but in late fall and winter becomes bitter because of the bird having fed on the leaves 

 of the alder and to many persons is then (]uite poisonous". 



In sjieaking of Sabine's rufled grouse [li. u. sahiiii). he continues. "The flesh is white and 

 palatable save in winter, when it is often bitter, oica.*ionally fla\ored with turpentine from 

 eating the buds of the fir trees". In speaking of the gray rufled grouse in the Yukon Terri- 

 tory, he adds that it subsists on spruce buds which gi\e a disagreeable flavor lo the flesh. 

 In this he is eloquentl) borne out by Sandys'"', who writes of the grouse picturesquely, "Its 

 favorite food is the buds of the spruce which impart to the flesh a flavor which might ap- 

 peal to the ])alate of an eastern spruce gum-chewer, but which signally fails to hold the 

 appreciative attention of an epicure unless he also happens to be a lost prospector keen 

 for a 'grubstake' ". 



The presumably poisonous properties imparted lo tlie flesh of birds that fceil on laurel 

 has already been discussed. 



The present authors are duly appreciative of this background of testimony, but being 

 neither spruce guni-chewers nor epicures tliey ha\e failed to note ])ersonally llie peculiar 

 flavors described by these observers. The grouse, shot in season and properly prepared, is in 

 New York invarial)ly a delicacy of the first order. 



FOOD AND ITS RELATION TO HEALTH 



The ability of the grouse to survive the rigors of a biting winter on little more substantial 

 foods than buds is but one of the interesting situations confronting those who would study its 

 food habits. Pheasants and quail would starve miserably on a diet of cherry, asjjen and birch 



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