COOKERY OF THE HARE 257 



ingredient. The true Scotch cordon bleu would despair 

 of producing her celebrated soup if deprived of it, and 

 it appears in nearly every recipe of the French school. 

 Dumas, indeed, has recorded in his 'Grande Diction- 

 naire de Cuisine ' a dish with the gruesome title 

 levrauts an sang, for which the blood of five pigeons 

 has to be obtained, in addition to that of the leveret ! 

 The recipe is not worth quoting, being a sort of hotch- 

 potch of pigeon and leveret — in other words, an inar- 

 tistic blending of two good things which would be 

 infinitely better treated separately. 



A few words ought certainly to be said in acknow- 

 ledgment of the great merit of hare soups. Of these 

 there are three varieties — the thick, the puree, and 

 the clear. The first is a decoction of hare in good 

 beef stock, thickened without the addition of meat ; 

 the second like the first, but with the meat of the hare 

 pounded and blended with it ; and the third also 

 made like the first, but, instead of being thickened, 

 clarified, a slight consistency (not to interfere with the 

 clear effect) being imparted by pulverised tapioca or 

 corn-flour. Julienne-like strips of the meat of the 

 hare, and similar strips of freshly-cooked truffles, form 

 the garnish of this remarkably good soup. Claret 

 should be used in the two first-named soups, chablis 

 in the third. The fame of Scotch hare soup has of 



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