284 COOKERY OF THE GROUSE 



with it to table ; but lemon is one of those good things 

 which are liable to abuse in cookery, in regard to meats 

 and fowls. It is more at home with fish and sweets. 



Of the ruder and more national form (which is 

 also, I think, the best) of grouse soup, the celebrated 

 stew whereof Meg Merrilies made Dominie Sampson 

 partake was probably a variety, though the authority 

 saith that moor-game were not the only ingredient of 

 that soup or broth or stew. The beginning is the 

 same as for puree, and indeed puree and this sort of 

 soup melt into each other by imperceptible gradations. 

 For you may either roast the birds as in the former 

 case, cut off the best of the meat, break up and 

 slightly pound the rest, fry it with butter, some ham 

 and vegetables, and then stew it with good stock, in 

 quantity sufficient (some say a quart to a bird), and 

 after straining put the best pieces of meat in at the 

 last moment, to warm up with a glass of claret. Or 

 you may cut up the birds into joints to begin with, 

 fry them in butter, and then add the stock, the vege- 

 tables and the etceteras, proceeding in ordinary soup 

 fashion till the thing is done. Some in this last stage 

 advocate the adding of a young cabbage in pieces, 

 with wine or not, as liked. And as the birds have, 

 in this case, no ordinary cooking but the slight fry, 

 and no pounding or other mollification, it is necessary 



