THE COOKERY OF THE HARE 



As an introduction to this pleasant subject it is ad- 

 visable, I think, to trace the liistory of the hare as an 

 article of food from the earliest English records, and, 

 after showing what our ancestors did with it, to pass 

 on to the various methods adopted for its treatment 

 in the modern kitchen ; for, oddly enough, it will be 

 found that there is a distinct similarity to be detected 

 between some of the processes which were in vogue 

 six hundred years ago and those that are followed in 

 the present day. 



On the very threshold of this retrospect, it is inter- 

 esting to find that at the time of the Roman Con- 

 quest the hare was not considered fit to eat. Julius 

 Caesar mentions this as one of the peculiarities of the 

 Angli, adding that they kept the animal merely volnp- 

 tatis causa. 'But,' says Mr. Carew-Hazlitt in his 

 treatise on 'Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine,' 

 ' the way in which the author of the " Commentaries " 

 puts it induces the persuasion that by lepus he means 



