THE ART OF COOKING GAME. 463 



Nothing is more annoying — at least to us, and no doubt gene- 

 rally to our friends — than to toil after game all day, even if this 

 toil be our pleasure, and then have it totally ruined by the care- 

 lessness or ignorance of the cook ; and, what is worse than all, 

 perhaps disappoint a score of anxious guests, whom, in the good- 

 ness of our heart, we have asked, to be partakers of our feast. 



We are not a cook, brother sportsman, nor are we a glutton ; 

 but we may, perhaps, be a gourmand, or, in other words, an epicure, 

 in all that relates to the cooking and serving up of game. There 

 is, however, a wide distinction between these two characters. The 

 epicure, by the acuteness of his palate in the exercise of that sense 

 bestowed upon him by his Creator, is able to distinguish the good 

 from the bad. The other regards not the delicacy or the quality 

 of the food set before him, but rejoices alone at the quantity which 

 he may be permitted to stow away in his capacious, ever-craving 

 maw. 



If a greedy, gormandizing fellow, unaccustomed to good living 

 and moderate drinking, chooses to overload his stomach at a din- 

 ner-table, surely such beastly conduct is no argument against the 

 rational enjoyment of eating in moderation, or against the seduc- 

 tions consequent upon good cookery and highly-seasoned food ; for 

 it is a well-known fact, as stated by Accum, that " savages, whose 

 cookery is in the rudest state, are more apt to overeat themselves 

 than the veriest belly-god of a luxurious and refined people, — a 

 fact which of itself is sufficient to prove that it is not cookery 

 which is the cause of gluttony and surfeiting. The savage, in- 

 deed, suffers far less from his swinish excesses than the sedentary 

 and refined gourmand ; for, after sleeping sometimes for a whole 

 day, having gorged himself with food, hunger again drives him 

 forth to the chase, in which he soon gets rid of the ill effects of 

 his overloaded stomach. Surely, cookery is not to blame for the 

 effects of gluttony, indolence, and sedentary occupations ; yet it 

 does appear that all its eff'ects are erroneously charged to the 

 j»<;count of the refined art of cookery." 



Although we may be willing to acknowledge ourselves in some 



