[ 384 ]
NOTES
On the preceding Paper, On the Order and Government of a House.
Illustrative of this "Order and Government of a Nobleman's House," are two accounts printed among the notes of the Northumberland Household Book, p. 419 et seq. "An Account how the Earl of Worcester lived at Ragland Castle, before the Civil Wars, [begun in 1641,]" and "Lord Fairfax's Orders for the Servants of his Houshold [after the Civil Wars]."—Consult also Fleta on this subject.—See also "The Boke of Carvinge," Black Letter, no date.
In the Lift of Birds and Fowls here served up at Table in a Nobleman's House, it is hardly necessary to observe that many, if not the most of them, are considered at this time as being rank carrion.
To make the "Bustarde" palatable, [p. 341.] Muffett in his Treatise on Food, London, 1655, 4to. p. 91, gives the following very curious prescription:
"Chuse the youngest and fattest about Allhalontide, (for then they are best) and diet him a day or two with a little white bread, or rather keep him altogether fasting, that he may scour away his ordure: then let him bleed to death in the neck-veins; and having hanged three or four daies in a cool place out of the moonshine, either rost it, or bake it, as you do a turkie, and it will prove both a dainty and a wholsome meat."
To render "the Storcke, Bitter, and Hernne, (Heron) p. 341," fit to be eaten, he advises, ut supra, p. 93.—"Chufe the youngest and fatest, for they may be eaten, so with much spice, salt or onions, and beeing throughly steept in a draught of old wine. If they be drest without their skins, they rellish far better, according to the French and the best fashion, who also stuff them full of sweet herbs, and draw them with fine and small lard."
"Craynes," p. 341, say the Notes to the Northumberland Household Book, are now judged to have forsaken this island, then almost as common as the Heron or Heron-Sew.
The Bitter is the Bittern of Ray—"Ardea Stellaris."
Cranes, says Muffett, ut supra, p. 91. "as old Dr. Turner writ unto Gesner, breed in our English fens being young, killed with a goshawk, and hanged two or threedays
