COOKERY 273 



the orthodox port, and suggests the addition of a 

 spoonful of Harvey. But when all is said, there is 

 really small reason to trouble over these elaborately 

 compounded sauces. You can hardly do better than 

 treat the birds for yourself with the sympathetic 



abstraction of Theodore Burton : slash the bosoms 



i 



and flush them freely with an infusion of heated port, 

 lemon juice, and Nepaul. 



Most that has been said as to ducks applies 

 equally to wild geese, always remembering that the 

 geese are stronger of flavour at the best and demand 

 more powerful treatment. They are seldom to be 

 seen at the London poulterers, and are generally sold 

 fora song. Soyer, in his learned work 'The Pantro- 

 phean,' reminds us that, tame or wild, they were 

 appreciated in the classical ages of Greece and Rome. 

 The geese saved the Capitol, and the Romans showed 

 their gratitude by giving them an honoured place at 

 their banquets. Their flights came almost to the city 

 gates, in what are known now as the Pontine Marshes, 

 when the vast wheat-fields of the great half-drained 

 latifolia were interspersed with swamp and sedgy 

 pools. I never heard of a wild goose boiled, in 

 modern times, but Soyer quotes from Pliny a recipe 

 for wild goose boiled a la Gauloise. Also he gives an 

 Apician seasoning from the liver, for it is to be noted 



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