Modern cookery for private families

a barbarous custom, which has been partially abandoned of late in the best houses, and which it is hoped may soon be altogether superseded by one of better taste. The breast is by far the finest part of a pheasant, and it is carved in slices from pinion to pinion, in the lines _a a b b_; the legs may then be taken off, in the direction _c d_. The bird, when it is preferred so, may be entirely dismembered by the directions for a fowl, No. 16. Black and moor-game are trussed and served like pheasants. The breasts of both are very fine eating, and the thigh of the black-cock is highly esteemed. No. 16. A BOILED FOWL. The boiled fowl of plate 6 is represented as garnished with branches of parsley, which is an error, as they would be appropriate to it only if it were cold, and it is seldom served so, being considered insipid. Small tufts of cauliflower would have been in better keeping with it, as the bird is supposed to be dished for the dinner-table. Unless it be for large family parties, fowls are seldom carved there entirely into joints; but when it is wished to divide them so, the fork should be fixed firmly in the centre of the breast, and the leg, being first disengaged from the skin, may be taken off with the wing in the line _a b_; or, the wing being previously removed, by carving it down the line to _b_, and there separating it from the neck-bone, the leg may be released from the skin, and easily taken off, by cutting round it from _a_ to _c_, and then turning it with the fork, back from the body, when the joint will readily be perceived. [Illustration] After the leg and wing on the other side have been taken off in the same manner, the merrythought must follow. To remove this, the knife must be drawn through the flesh in the line _d e_, and then turned towards the neck quite under the merrythought, which it will so lift