The compleat cook, market-woman, and dairy maid / [Jassintour Rozea].

  • Rozea, Jassintour.
Date:
1756
    into this, otherwife you may be deceived ; for fome butchers have the art to make the leg of a bull-calf refemble that of a cow-calf. All the joints about a calf, are, or may, with propriety, be roafted, and mod of them boiled. Note, a cow-calf is the befh The fore-quarter makes three diftinT joints; and from thefe come the knuckle and craig, which is the bloody end of the neck. The fhoulder is feldom boiled or feen at a Nobleman’s table 5 the neck is delicate, either roafted or boiled : the breaft is commonly roafted, and greatly admired for its juicy griffels. Thefe are the three joints. The fore-quarter contains, fhoulrder, neck, and breaft ; the hind- quarter has a better knuckle than the fore-quar¬ ter. We make but two joints in the hind-quar¬ ter, the leg and loin ; the loin is always roafted : when the knuckle is cut from the lev, it is call- ed a fillet, and is often boiled, but moftly roaft¬ ed. I take the loin to be the beft roafting-piece in the whole calf; for the fat of the kidney keeps the fleihy part moift and delicious. The inwards are, the pluck, which contains the milt, heart, liver, and lights, the throat, and heart- fweet-bred, which laft is the fin eft; and the froife or chaldron, which is fome times roafted, but is beft ftoved : the fweet-breds are a deli¬ cious morfel, and are generally roafted ; the li¬ ver is fometimes roafted; and the heart, lights, and liver, roafted together, is called a calf’s ba¬ llet ; and the head muft not be forgot; but more of this in its proper place. The feet are ufed for jelly, and often ftcwed.
    The Italians are fo in love with veal, that they call it vitellam ; that is to fay, their little life ; as tho’ it gave not only nourifhment, but alfo life to their dry bodies. Six weeks is a good age for a calf ; for then the flefh begins to be firm, and void of its fu- perfluous moifture. It is faid, the Homans let their calves luck from fix to twelve months; and tpok great care they had no other nourifhment but from fucking the cow. A calf fhould be bled three times, in the laft ten days it has to live. A calf is much the better of having chalk 1 to lick; for this caufes drouth, and makes him take a larger draught; by which he becomes whiter, and fatter than other wife he would. A calf fhould be fuckled three times a day, and have plenty of clean ftraw. Mutton ; the figns whether it be frejh or flale, young or old. If young, the flefh will pinch tender ; if old, it will wrinkle and remain fo ; if young, the fat will eafily part from the lean ; if old, it will flick by fkins and firings. The fat of ram mut¬ ton feels fpungy, fkinny, and hard ; the flefh clofe-grained and tough, not rifing again, when ' dented with your finger. The flefh of ew mut¬ ton is paler than that of a we elder, has a clofer grain, and parts eafier. When there is a rot among the fheep, their flefh looks of a palifh colour, and the fat of a faint whitifh, inclining to yellow; and the flefh will be loofe at the bone ; if you fqueeze it hard, feme drops of water will hand up like fweat: as for newnefs or ftalenefs,
    the colour and fcent will inform you beft. The head of a fheep is not much regarded in England\ except that part of it, the tongue; the fore¬ quarter contains the neck, breafc, and fhoulder; the two firft are often boiled and roafted, the laft feldom but roafted 5 the hind-quarter is the leg and the loin, and are both called roafting joints; the leg is indeed as often boiled as roaft¬ ed ; the trotter or feet, are in much efteem; in Scotland they are finged, with the head, to make barley-broth with, and is a difh, when well and cleanly dreffed, fit for any Nobleman’s table; this, and a fheep’s haggefs, which is made of the pluck, &c. will not be forgot, in its proper place. The beft mutton is about four years old; that which is fattened from a fhort, hilly, and dry feeding, is more fweet, fhort, and wholfome, than that which is either fed in rank ground, peafe ftraw, or turnips, as we perceive by the tafte: great, fat, and rank-fed mutton, fuch as Somerfet and Lin-* colnjhire fends up to London, are nothing fo fhort and pleafant, in eating, as the Norfolk, Wtltfire, Scots and Weljh mutton. The younger mutton does beft roafted, and the older boiled. Houje-lamh, thefigns thereof. In the fore-quarter, mind the neck-vein ; if it be an azure blue, it is new and good; but greenifh or yellowifh is a fign of its being near tainting, if not tainted already ; the hinder-quarter you may fcent under the kidney, and try the knuckle if it be limber or ftiff; which being limber, and under the kidney a bad fcent, is a fign of its be¬ ing ftale. The fign of the head being frefh or
    ftale, is known by the eyes; if they be funk or wrinkled, it is ftale ; if plump and lively, it is new, and fweet. The head of a houfe-lamb, with the pluck, feet, and ears, is reckoned a genteel difh; the fore-quarter is generally roaft- ed whole, and often in joints; the neck and breaft, when not feparated, are called the ribs, which are frequently roafted, and fometimes boiled 3 the fhoulder is very rarely boiled ; the hind-quarter contains the leg and loin, which is good either roafted or boiled ; the leg is oftener boiled than the loin. The butchers fometimes cut chines of lamb, which are cut like thofe of mutton, and is no more than the two loins together, uncloven, which make a genteel ap¬ pearance, when roafted. Note, When a calf is fmall, you may cut a chine in the above man¬ ner. The French roaft the hinder half of a lamb, and call it rot bceuj d'ngneau, which fignifies a large roafting joint of lamb. Delicate diihes are made with lambs, fheeps, and calves rumps; not forgetting the lamb’s frye, which is compofed of feveral nice parts of the inwards, as the fweet-bred, kernels, fkirts, li¬ ver, &c. Lamb was much efteemed among the anti- ents. Philachorus is recorded to have made a lave, that the Athenians fhould eat no more lamb s fiefh; not becaufe they thought it too tender a meat for mens ftomachs,but for this rea- fon ; the people found it fo wholfome, pleafant, and nourilhing, that every man defined it above all meats, in fuch jort, that, had not the eating C of
    of them been reftrained, by a fevere law, the whole race of fheep would have decayed among ft them. The polite give the preference to houfe- lamb, but certain it is, that grafs-lamb is by much the wholfomeft meat; for the flefh of it is not of fo fiafhy and moift a nature as that of houfe-lamb. After a lamb is once weaned and fed on ftiort, tender grafs, for half a year, it is then of all other flefh limply the beft ; and we read of the bleffed facrament in the Old Tefta- ment, that a lamb of this fort was thought the pureft, molt temperate and nourifhing of all meats. A method for managing and ordering of houfe-lamb; which, if well obferved, you will have fine white fat lambs. As foon as thev are come from their dames, bring them into the houfe, and make little pens for them, a little manger for fome of the beft white oats, and give them clean ftrawT every day ; fuckle them three times a-day : they Ihould not lie again ft any brick or lime-wall, for that will fpoil their colour; if you have the opportunity of two ews to a lamb, it will make it very good in fix weeks time. PORK. The method to know whether it be young or old, frejh or fi ale. If it be young, the lean will break in pinching betwixt your fingers; alfo, if you nip the ikin with your nails, if it will receive, and enter in¬ to the fkin; it is a fure fign of its being young, if the fat be foft and pulpy ; but, if the lean be tough,