THE PREPARATION, ETC., OF FOOD. 89 



although I confess that I despair of making this 

 portion of my subject satisfactorily clear to my 

 readers. 



RECIPE No. 3. To Mix THE FOOD FOR YOUNG 

 PHEASANTS. 



Take your rice first, and press it down with your 

 fingers and the flat of the hand into a smooth mass 

 upon the table ; then chop up your custard with the 

 three-bladed chopper, and add it to the rice, from 

 which all lumps have been previously expressed. 

 Now add the crissel, if you are using it. This should 

 have been soaked all the previous night in cold water, 

 only just allowing sufficient water for the crissel to 

 absorb comfortably, and none to strain out. Then 

 add what, for want of a better word, I will call your 

 " best " or " prepared " meal, topping up with 

 wheaten meal, barley meal, and Indian meal, and 

 there's your feed. Of course, you must judge for 

 yourself as to the quantity required for each meal, 

 but, as a very rough calculation, the suggestion of a 

 quart potful to feed five hundred birds for one round 

 may not be so absolutely amiss. 



This should all be pressed and mixed together 

 with the hand until it becomes of exactly such a 

 consistency as that, when you hold a squeezed- 

 together ball of it in one hand, if touched by the 

 other, the ball will promptly fall to pieces. You will 

 find that you will have to work it with your hands 



