COOKERY OF THE GROUSE 285 



to ' simmer till tender,' which in the case of an old 

 grouse or black-cock may be a considerable time. 

 For the really hungry man this is, no doubt, the best 

 way of all ; but as a dinner dish it is perhaps, as has 

 been hinted, too solid for the mere overture to which 

 we have now reduced soup. In the days of the 

 ancestors, they ate it late instead of early in the order 

 of dishes ; and I am not certain that they were wrong. 

 There are few things more engaging about grouse 

 than the excellent appearance that it makes in cold 

 cookery, whether by itself, in salads, or in pies. 

 Chaudfroid of grouse (it is quite useless for purists to 

 warn us that the word has nothing to do with chaud 

 and nothing \\i\hfroid, that its being chaud is an acci- 

 dent, and that its creator was one Chauffroix) is excel- 

 lent. So are grouse potted whole (baked, with wine 

 and butter, and afterwards stowed singly into pots with 

 clarified butter poured over), or in joints, or in pounded 

 paste. So is the cold roast bird in the severest 

 simplicity, especially if he has not been cut into when 

 hot. So is grouse salad, of which a savoury, but rather 

 violent, if not even slightly vulgar, variety assigned to 

 Soyer is to be found in all the books with more or 

 fe\ver changes. The general principle is that, the joints 

 of not too much roasted grouse being laid on a bed 

 of salad and fenced round with garnishings of hard- 



