274 COOKERY OF THE GROUSE 



of grouse proper. For very obvious reasons the anti- 

 quarian part of the matter needs but little attention. 

 Until railway-and-steamboat-time grouse were any- 

 thing but common in London and exceedingly un- 

 common in Paris, and the chef of literary tendencies 

 was not likely to trouble himself much about them. 

 Their rarity in the former place is exemplified in the 

 well-known though doubtless apocryphal legend of the 

 Highland chieftain who ordered ' grouse and salmon ' 

 for his domestics at a London hotel. And the books 

 said very little about them. For instance, a lady had 

 the great kindness to examine for me a country-house 

 collection of cookery books, English, Scotch, French, 

 and American, extending to some score of volumes, 

 and all printed between 1790 and 1830. They yielded 

 practically nothing but the direction 'Roast moor-game 

 half an hour : serve with fried bread crumbs, bread 

 sauce, and sliced raw onions in a little water in the 

 same boat,' and the still more general advice to ' dress 

 them like partridges and send them up with currant 

 jelly and fried bread crumbs.' It is somewhat interest- 

 ing to notice that the onion sauce (or rather salad) here 

 suggested is neither more nor less than a degraded 

 and barbarous survival of the onion puree which, as 

 was noted in the volume on the Partridge in this series, 

 Gervase Markham had prescribed for that bird some 



