270 COOKERV OF THE GROUSE 



most French fashions of cooking game a sufficiently 

 ingenious method of making the best of any natural 

 flavour that the bird might have, and imbuing it with 

 a good many others, not at all disagreeable, but super- 

 added rather than evolved or assisted, a method useful 

 enough for old birds or indifferent birds, but improper 

 for others. 



This process could nowhere be more a counsel of 

 imperfection than in the case of grouse ; which, I ven- 

 ture to think, has of all game birds the most distinct 

 and the least surpassable flavour. There are those, 

 of course, who will put in claims for others, and this 

 is not the place to fight the matter out. I shall only 

 say that while nearly all game birds are good, and 

 some eminently good, grouse seems to me to be the 

 best, to possess the fullest and at the same time the 

 least violent flavour to have the best consistency of 

 flesh and to present the greatest variety of attractions 

 in different parts. It has become almost an affectation 

 to speak of the excellence of his back ; let us rather 

 say that he is all good back and breast, legs and 

 wings. 



Black-game, capercailzie, and ptarmigan are but 

 varieties of grouse, and almost everything that applies 

 to the red grouse applies to them. Indeed, the ex- 

 cellent Baron Brisst characteristically includes both 



