jmcquown wrote:
> On 2/18/2013 6:49 PM, Jean B. wrote:
>> Paging through Venus in the Kitchen or Love's Cookery Book by Pilaff Bey
>> (pseudonym of Norman Douglas), I came across the following: Rôti Sans
>> Pareil. Going from the smallest item to the largest, we have
>>
>> a large olive stuffed with a paste of anchovies, capers and oil;
>> a trussed and boned garden warbler;
>> a fat ortolan;
>> a boned lark;
>> a boned thrush;
>> a fat quail;
>> a boned lapwing;
>> a boned golden plover;
>> a fat, boned, red-legged partridge;
>> a young, boned, well-hung woodcock rolled in crumbs;
>> a boned teal;
>> a boned, well-larded guinea-fowl;
>> a young, boned, tame duck;
>> a boned, fat fowl; a well-hung pheasant;
>> a boned, fat, wild goose;
>> a fine turkey; and
>> a boned bustard.
>> This was apparently an abbreviated form of a recipe that was in A. T.
>> Raimbault's Le Parfait Cuisinier (1814). Douglas points out some
>> problems, like the impossibility of stuffing larger birds into smaller
>> ones (e.g., stuffing a lapwing into a plover). You can compare
>> Douglas's rendition with that on page 92 of Raimbault's book via goog1e,
>> assuming you can read French:
>>
>> <http://books.google.com/books?id=rtNqrNGoXEwC&printsec=frontcover&source=g bs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false>
>>
>>
>>
>> or
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/b5beend
>>
>>
> Was this some sort of festival dish? How many people were they cooking
> for?
>
> Jill <---will just watch the garden warblers, thank you

I am not sure what prose surrounds the original, because my French
is not adequate to translate any such thing. These were recipes
the author collected that were supposed to be aphrodisiacs. I
agree about the warblers and other birds, minus the turkey and
maybe some of the other big ones.

I was thinking about the ortolan and wondered whether it was
extinct. Looking into that, I see it is nearly extinct. I seem
to recall that they were part of Mitterrand's last meal.