COOKERY OF THE PARTRIDGE 263 



and then a joint stew for two hours, if the birds are 

 young, and three if they are old, while M. Duret, giving 

 them a preliminary fry, ordains an hour and a half of 

 concoction together. But this is the way of cookery- 

 books, and without it a whole library would be 

 reduced to a very small bookshelf. The principle of 

 the whole is obvious enough. You have some pro- 

 bably rather tough, and not improbably rather taste- 

 less, birds, and you give them tenderness and taste by 

 adding them to, or cooking them with, bacon and 

 cabbage, 'poiled with the paeon and as coot as 

 marrow,' as the Welsh farmer observes in ' Crotchet 

 Castle.' You season with the usual vegetables and 

 sauces, and you add, partly as a decoration and partly 

 as a finish, some sort of sausage cervelas, chipolata, 

 or was Sie iviinschen. Every one who has ever eaten 

 a well-cooked perdrix aux choux knows that the 

 result is admirable ; but I do not think that it is 

 mere prejudice or John-Bullishness to suspect that 

 the perdrix has the least say in the matter. 



The partridge, however, is undoubtedly a most 

 excellent vehicle for the reception and exhibition of 

 ingeniously concocted savours ; and he has sufficient 

 character of his own, unless in extreme cases, not to 

 be overcome by them altogether. If I were disposed 

 to take an unmanly advantage of Madame Lebour- 



