GEORGE ALLEN,
SUNNYSIDE, ORPINGTON, KENT.
1873.
[1]
FORS CLAVIGERA.
LETTER XXV.
Brantwood,
January 4th, 1873.
The Third Fors, having been much adverse to me, and more to many who wish me well,during the whole of last year, has turned my good and helpful printer adrift in thelast month of it; and, with that grave inconvenience to him, contrived for me theminor one of being a fortnight late with my New Year’s letter. Under which provocationI am somewhat consoled this morning by finding in a cookery book, of date 1791, “writtenpurely from practice, and dedicated to the Hon. Lady Elizabeth Warburton, whom theauthor lately served as housekeeper,” a receipt for Yorkshire Goose Pie, with whichI think it will be most proper and delightful to begin my economical instructionsto you for the current year. I am, indeed, greatly tempted to give precedence to thereceipt for making “Fairy Butter,” and further disturbed by an extreme desire to tellyou how to [2]construct an “Apple Floating-Island”; but will abide, nevertheless, by my Goose Pie.
“Take a large fat goose, split it down the back, and take all the bones out; bonea turkey and two ducks the same way, season them very well with pepper and salt, withsix woodcocks; lay the goose down on a clean dish, with the skin-side down; and laythe turkey into the goose, with the skin down; have ready a large hare, cleaned well,cut in pieces, and stewed in the oven, with a pound of butter, a quarter of an ounceof mace, beat fine, the same of white pepper, and salt to your taste, till the meatwill leave the bones, and scum the butter off the gravy, pick the meat clean off,and beat it in a marble mortar very fine, with the butter you took off, and lay itin the turkey; take twenty-four pounds of the finest flour, six pounds of butter,half-a-pound of fresh rendered suet, make the paste pretty thick, and raise the pieoval; roll out a lump of paste, and cut it in vine-leaves or what form you please;rub the pie with the yolks of eggs, and put your ornaments on the walls; then turnthe hare, turkey, and goose upside down, and lay them in your pie, with the ducksat each end, an