58 PARTRIDGES 



of culinary art, probably very unwhole- 

 some, and in which the partridge itself is 

 completely lost. 



Most of these over-elaborated recipes 

 were either devised on the Continent, 

 where grey partridges are not always to 

 be had, to give savour to the comparatively 

 tasteless redleg, or else were invented in 

 response to the insensate and insatiate 

 demand for novelties to tickle the jaded 

 palate of a certain over-luxurious class of 

 modern society, the sort of people for 

 whom the best is not quite good enough, 

 a class with which let us hope that neither 

 you, my gentle reader, nor I have any- 

 thing in common. 



One cunning concoction of this nature 

 may serve as a fair sample of the rest ; 

 and indeed this one is not without a 

 certain historic interest of its own. It 

 is thus given by the cordon bleu of the 

 Carlton : 



Perdrix a la mode d' Alcantara. 

 At the beginning of the campaign of 



