Partrich rosted

[hrj]

One of the two large groceries most convenient to my house is a "Ranch 99" which, for those of you not resident in one of the four states the chain appears in, specializes in groceries for Chinese cuisine (and a number of other SE Asian cultures). One feature that definitely distinguishes it from your average American chain grocery is the variety and selection of animal species featured in the meat department. (This is where I got the whole kid that I roasted last year at the WAT cooks' play-date.) I've had a mind to start working my way through the non-chicken poultry offerings, so for the picnic dinner at yesterday's Crosston Dance Ball, I picked up a partridge. It did not -- alas -- come with feet attached (although you can get chicken and duck in that form) but did come with head affixed. This was part of the attraction: a major aspect of the esthetics of medieval roast birds in art is that they are served with feet and head intact.

There are plenty of recipes for roast partridge in 14-15th c. European cookbooks but they are all quite simple.  See e.g., Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks p. 78:

• Partrich rosted. Take a partrich, and sle him in the nape of the hede with a fethur; dight him, larde him, and roste him as thon doest a ffesaunte in the same wise. And serue him forth; then sauce him with wyne, pouder of ginger and salt, and sette hit in a dissh on the fuyre til hit boyle; then cast powder ginger, anell, thereon, And kutte him so; or elles ete him with sugur and Mustard.

Relevant to this is the directions immediately preceding for roasting pheasant:

• ffesaunte rosted … kutte away … the legges by the kne and putte the kneys in at the vente, and roste him ….

Since the market had already taken care of the slaying and dighting, and this was a domestically raised bird so there was enough subcutaneous fat that it didn't need larding, I simply tucked the ends of the legs into the vent as directed for the pheasant (I had to wedge the end of the bone into the hollow of the pelvis for them to stay -- this made the legs splay out a bit). I dusted the outside with a little saffron salt and then roasted at 350F for 60 minutes on a rack. Because I was being a little lazy and had a small jar of honey-mustard sitting around, I went with the "sugur and Mustard" sauce.

Several of us were having an impromptu shared meal at the Ball so I carved the bird up into a dozen or so tasting portions and served with mustard or plain as requested. Everyone declared it quite tasty and definitely not "just like chicken". I found the taste pleasantly a bit stronger than chicken and vaguely reminiscent of duck, but in a much milder way. The roasting time may have been longer than necessary and the wings and drumsticks were turning a little on the dry side.

My imagination is contemplating the concept of a medieval dinner with as great a variety of bird species as I can lay my hands on.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

My imagination is contemplating the concept of a medieval dinner with as great a variety of bird species as I can lay my hands on.

All stuffed one inside another? I have seen that done with ten boned birds - and an olive inside the quail at the centre - and was assured that it was a genuine mediaeval recipe.

I'm very fond of partridge. Also guineafowl, and teal, and - oh, all the gamebirds I've ever tried. They seem harder to track down over here, and more expensive once tracked - but I hadn't thought of Ranch 99. An expedition is in order. (Besides, last time we went they had pigs' brains. I had a couple of very happy lunches, when m'wife was safely out of the house...)

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Not stuffed inside one another. That's a nice party trick but not really typical of medieval dining. (That is, they had entire repertoires of "party tricks" but the stuffed-inside-eachother wasn't the normal way of serving roast fowl.) No, I was thinking of all the menus that list a dozen different bird species and you're just imagining that they'd gone out hunting with their falcons the day before and then handed the results over to the kitchen and said, "Serve this for dinner tomorrow."

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Aye. The snipe (did you know that "sniper" comes from snipe? because they're so difficult to shoot on the wing?) and woodcock with their heads twisted around so that they're skewered on their own beaks. Sitting on a piece of toast, the woodcock.

[joycebre.livejournal.com]

now I wish I'd tried some - did you serve it with the head? I didn't notice.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Yup, the head was curled around on its little breast.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

What's a fethur? (I'm assuming it can't be a feather...)

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I think it is a feather -- but I'm not sure of the technique. There are various methods described for killing small birds so that you can bleed them out without actually removing the head. (Some of them would be considered inhumane today.)

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Ah, of course! I didn't think of the bleeding. And, also, I don't think I'll ever look at a feather in quite the same way now...

[hunrvogt.livejournal.com]

Assuming nape of the head means the back of the head, I suspect they are describing some form of blunt force trauma. Anatomically, that's not where you would bled a bird out but that is where you would dispatch them via trauma. In that context a fethur should be some sort of cudgle. The other possibility in the region would be pithing which would make the fethur something very sharp and narrow.

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

"Sle him in the nape of the hede with a fethur" sounds like the pithing technique described in my high school bio class--but it's hard to imagine a feather both sturday and sharp enough for that job.


My imagination is contemplating the concept of a medieval dinner with as great a variety of bird species as I can lay my hands on.

I went to a feast like that once, at a Cooks' Collegium in Chicago. It was amazing....

[hunrvogt.livejournal.com]

If you do that dinner, I wanna play. I've long wanted to do a similar meal.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

What a great idea! (Scribbles note to self)
Ranch 99 is also where I've gotten wheat starch for the white saveloy class I'm teaching at the WC Cooks' Symposium this year.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

A bird feast sounds delectable.