Hand-Book of Practical Cookery, for Ladies and Professional Cooks: Containing the Whole Science and Art of Preparing Human Food

dry with a clean towel immediately after; wipe also the outside, but do not wash it if possible; that is, if you can clean it well by wiping only. _Wild ducks_, _geese_, _pigeons_, and _turkeys_, are prepared, cooked, and served like tame ones. _Bear-meat and Buffalo._--The meat of all large animals is better roasted, than dressed in any other way. Prepare, cook, and serve bear and buffalo meat like venison, beef _à la mode_, or stewed. Bear-meat has highly nutritive qualities, and is very warming. Buffalo-steaks are said to be better broiled on cinders without a gridiron, than on or before coals with one; that is, Indian fashion and even hunters' fashion. Indians often use wood-ashes as a substitute for salt, and never use salt with buffalo-meat; but their liking or preference comes from their habit of invariably broiling buffalo-meat on wood cinders or buffalo-chips. _Bear-hams_, so well appreciated everywhere, are prepared and served like common hams. A bear-ham, tastefully decorated, is considered a _recherché_ dish at supper for evening parties. _Blackbird_, _Bobolink_, and _Small Birds_.--The cut below represents six small birds on the spit, ready for _roasting_. When the birds are prepared, cut off the ends of the wings and the legs above the first joint. Instead of cutting the legs above the first joint, the ends of the claws only may be cut off, according to taste. Cut thin slices of fat salt pork, of a proper size to cover the breast of the bird; place the slice on the breast of it, run a skewer through the middle of the bird, so that it will run through the two ends of the slice of salt pork also, as seen in the cut. Have a skewer, or merely a piece of wire, long enough to hold six birds; fix the skewer on the spit, and roast. When the six birds are on the skewer, fasten them with twine, to prevent them from turning round, as seen in the cut. [Illustration] Small birds are cleaned and prepared as directed for poultry, but they are not trussed, their legs being