Edward Spencer

Shooting luncheons—Cold tea and a crust—Clear turtle—Such larks!—Jugged duck and oysters—Woodcock pie—Hunting luncheons—Pie crusts—The true Yorkshire pie—Race-course luncheons—Suggestions to caterers—The “Jolly Sand boys” stew—Various recipes—A race-course sandwich—Angels’ pie—“Suffolk pride”—Devilled larks—A light lunch in the Himalayas.

There is no meal which has become more “expanded” than a shooting luncheon. A crust of bread with cheese, or a few biscuits, and a flask of sherry sufficed for our forebears, who, despite inferior weapons and ammunition, managed to “bring ’em down” quite as effectually as do the shootists of this period. Most certainly and decidedly, a heavy luncheon is a mistake if you want to “shoot clean” afterwards. And bear this in mind, all ye “Johnnies” who rail at your host’s champagne and turtle, after luncheon, in a comfortable pavilion in the midst of a pheasant battue, and whose very beaters would turn up their noses at a pork pie and a glass of old ale, that there is nothing so good to shoot upon as cold tea, unless it be cold coffee. I have tried both, and for a shooting luncheon par excellence commend me to a crust and a pint of cold tea, eaten whilst sitting beneath the shelter of an unpleached hedge, against the formal spread which commences with a consommÉ, and finishes with guinea peaches, and liqueurs of rare curaÇoa. Of course, it is assumed that the shooter wishes to make a bag.

But as, fortunately for trade, everybody does not share my views, it will be as well to append a few dishes suitable to a scratch meal of this sort.

First of all let it be said that a

Roast Loin of Pork,

washed down with sweet champagne, is not altogether to be commended. I have nothing to urge against roast pork, on ordinary occasions, or champagne either; but a woodcock takes a lot of hitting.

Such a pudding as was sketched in the preceding chapter is allowable, as is also the Lancashire Hot-Pot.

Shepherd’s Pie,

i.e. minced meat beneath a mattress of mashed potatoes, with lots of gravy in the dish, baked, is an economical dish, but a tasty one; and I have never known much left for the beaters. Rabbit Pie, or Pudding, will stop a gap most effectually, and

Plover Pudding

—the very name brings water to the lips—is entitled to the highest commendation.

This is the favourite dish at the shooting luncheons of a well-known Royal Duke, and when upon one occasion the discovery was made that through some misunderstanding said pudding had been devoured to the very bones, by the loaders, the—well, “the band played,” as they say out West. And a stirring tune did that band play too.

Such Larks!

Stuff a dozen larks with a force-meat made from their own livers chopped, a little shallot, parsley, yolk of egg, salt, bread crumbs, and one green chili chopped and divided amongst the twelve. Brown in a stewpan, and then stew gently in a good gravy to which has been added a glass of burgundy.

This is a plÂt fit for an emperor, and there will be no subsequent danger of his hitting a beater or a dog. Another dainty of home invention is

Jugged Duck with Oysters.

Cut the fleshy parts of your waddler into neat joints, and having browned them place in a jar with nine oysters and some good gravy partly made from the giblets. Close the mouth of the jar, and stand it in boiling water for rather more than an hour. Add the strained liquor of the oysters and a little more gravy, and turn the concoction into a deep silver dish with a spirit lamp beneath. Wild duck can be jugged in the same way, but without the addition of the bivalves; and a mixture of port wine and Worcester sauce should be poured in, with a squeeze of lemon juice and cayenne, just before serving.

Another dish which will be found “grateful and comforting” is an old grouse—the older the tastier. Stuff him with a Spanish onion, add a little gravy and seasoning, and stew him till the flesh leaves the bones. All these stews, or “jugs” should be served on dishes kept hot by lighted spirit beneath them. This is most important.

A Woodcock Pie

will be found extremely palatable at any shooting luncheon, although more frequently to be met with on the sideboards of the great and wealthy. In fact, at Christmas time, ’tis a pie which is specially concocted in the royal kitchen at Windsor Castle, to adorn Her Most Gracious Majesty’s board at Osborne, together with the time-honoured baron of specially fed beef. This last named joint hardly meets my views as part of a breakfast menu; but here is the recipe for the woodcock pie.

Bone four woodcocks—I don’t mean take them off the hooks when the gentleman is not in his shop, but tell your cook to take the bones out of one you’ve shot yourself—put bones and trimmings into a saucepan with one shallot, one small onion, and a sprig of thyme, cover them with some good stock, and let this gravy simmer awhile. Take the gizzards away from the heart and liver, pound, and mix these with some good veal force-meat. Place the woodcocks, skin downwards, on a board; spread over each two layers of force-meat, with a layer of sliced truffles in between the two. Make your crust, either in a mould, or with the hands, put a layer of force-meat at the bottom, then two woodcocks, then a layer of truffles, then the other two woodcocks, another layer of truffles, and a top layer of force-meat, and some thin slices of fat bacon. Cover the pie, leaving a hole for the gravy, and bake in a moderate oven. After taking out pour in the gravy, then close the orifice and let the pie get cold before serving.

N.B.—It will stimulate the digging industry if one or two whole truffles have been hidden away in the recesses of the pie.

Another good pie I have met with—in the north country—was lined with portions of grouse and black game (no bones), with here and there half a hard-boiled egg. Nothing else except the necessary seasoning.

With regard to

Hunting Luncheons

it cannot be said that your Nimrod is nearly as well catered for as is the “Gun.” For, as a rule, the first-named, if he be really keen on the sport of kings has to content himself, during the interval of a “check,” with the contents of a sandwich-case, and a flask, which may contain either brown sherry or brandy and water—or possibly something still more seductive. I have heard of flasks which held milk punch, but the experience is by no means a familiar one. If your Nimrod be given to “macadamising,” instead of riding the line, or if he sicken of the business altogether before hounds throw off, he can usually “cadge” a lunch at some house in the neighbourhood, even though it may only “run to” bread and cheese—or, possibly, a wedge of a home-made pork-pie—with a glass, or mug, of nut brown ale. Not that all ale is “nut brown,” but ’tis an epithet which likes me well. Would it were possible to give practical hints here as to the true way to manufacture a pork-pie! To make the attempt would, I fear, only serve to invite disaster; for the art of pork-pie making, like that of the poet, or the play-actor, should be born within us. In large households in the midland counties (wherein doth flourish the pig tart) there is, as a rule, but one qualified pie-maker—who is incapable of any other culinary feat whatever. I have even been told that it requires “special hands” to make the crust of the proper consistency; and having tasted crusts and crusts, I can implicitly believe this statement. Here is a recipe for a veritable savoury

Yorkshire Pie.

Bone a goose and a large fowl. Fill the latter with the following stuffing:—minced ham, veal, suet, onion, sweet herbs, lemon peel, mixed spices, goose-liver, cayenne, and salt, worked into a paste with the yolks of two eggs. Sew up the fowl, truss it, and stew it with the goose for twenty minutes in some good beef and giblet stock, with a small glass of sherry, in a close stewpan. Then put the fowl inside the goose, and place the goose within a pie-mould which has been lined with good hot-water paste. Let the goose rest on a cushion of stuffing, and in the middle of the liquor in which he has been stewed. Surround him in the pie with slices of parboiled tongue and chunks of semi-cooked pheasant, partridge, and hare, filling in the vacancies with more stuffing, put a layer of butter atop, roof in the pie with paste, bake for three hours, and eat either hot or cold—the latter for choice.

For a skating luncheon

Irish Stew

is the recognised entrÉe, served in soup-plates, and washed down with hot spiced ale.

In the way of

Race-course Luncheons

our caterers have made giant strides in the last dozen years. A member of a large firm once told me that it was “out of the question” to supply joints, chops, and steaks in the dining-rooms of a grand stand, distant far from his base of operations, London. “Impossible, my dear sir! we couldn’t do it without incurring a ruinous loss.” But the whirligig of time has proved this feat to be not only possible, but one which has led to the best results for all concerned. In the matter of chops and steaks I hope to see further reforms introduced. These succulent dainties, it cannot be too widely known, are not at their best unless cut fresh from loin or rump, just before being placed on the gridiron. The longer a cut chop (raw) is kept the more of its virtue is lost. It might, possibly, cause a little extra delay, and a little extra expense, to send off loins and rumps from the butcher’s shop, instead of ready-cut portions, but the experiment would answer, in the long run. The same rule, of course, should apply to restaurants and grill-rooms all over the world.

During the autumn and winter months, race-course caterers seem to have but one idea of warm comforting food for their customers, and the name of that idea is Irish stew. This is no doubt an appetising dish, but might be varied occasionally for the benefit of the habitual follower of the sport of kings. Why not pea-soup, jugged hare (hares are cheap enough), hot-pot, Scotch broth, mullagatawny, hotch-potch, stewed or curried rabbit, with rice, shepherd’s pie, haricot ox-tails, sheep’s head broth (Scotch fashion), and hare soup! What is the matter with the world-renowned stew of which we read in The Old Curiosity Shop—the supper provided by the landlord of the “Jolly Sandboys” for the itinerant showmen? Here it is again:

“‘It’s a stew of tripe,’ said the landlord, smacking his lips, ‘and cowheel,’ smacking them again, ‘and bacon,’ smacking them once more, ‘and steak,’ smacking them for the fourth time, ‘and peas, cauliflowers, new potatoes, and sparrowgrass, all working up together in one delicious gravy.’ Having come to the climax, he smacked his lips a great many times, and taking a long hearty sniff of the fragrance that was hovering about, put on the cover again with the air of one whose toils on earth were over.

“‘At what time will it be ready?’ asked Mr. Codlin faintly. ‘It’ll be done to a turn,’ said the landlord, looking up at the clock, ‘at twenty-two minutes before eleven.’

“‘Then,’ said Mr. Codlin, ‘fetch me a pint of warm ale, and don’t let nobody bring into the room even so much as a biscuit till the time arrives.’”

And I do vow and protest that the above passage has caused much more smacking of lips than the most expensive, savoury menu ever thought out. True, sparrowgrass and new potatoes, and any peas but dried or tinned ones are not as a rule at their best in the same season as tripe; but why not dried peas, and old potatoes, and rice, and curry powder, and onions—Charles Dickens forgot the onions—with, maybe, a modicum of old ale added, for “body”—in this stew, on a cold day at Sandown or Kempton? Toujours Irish stew, like toujours mother-in-law, is apt to pall upon the palate; especially if not fresh made. And frost occasionally interferes with the best-laid plans of a race-course caterer.

“I don’t mind a postponed meeting,” once observed one of the “readiest” of bookmakers; “but what I cannot stand is postponed Irish stew.”

Than a good bowl of

Scotch Broth,

what could be more grateful, or less expensive?

Shin of beef, pearl barley, cabbages, leeks, turnips, carrots, dried peas (of course soaked overnight), and water—“all working up together in one delicious gravy.”

Also

Hotch Potch.

With the addition of cutlets from the best end of a neck of mutton, the same recipe as the above will serve for this dish, which it must be remembered should be more of a “stodge” than a broth.

There are more ways than one of making a “hot-pot.” The recipe given above would hardly suit the views of any caterer who wishes to make a living for himself; but it can be done on the cheap. The old lady whose dying husband was ordered by the doctor oysters and champagne, procured whelks and ginger beer for the patient, instead, on the score of economy. Then why not make your hot-pot with mussels instead of oysters? Or why add any sort of mollusc? In the certain knowledge that these be invaluable hints to race-course caterers, I offer them with all consideration and respect.

The writer well remembers the time when the refreshments on Newmarket Heath at race-time were dispensed from a booth, which stood almost adjoining the “Birdcage.” Said refreshments were rough, but satisfying, and consisted of thick sandwiches, cheese, and bread, with “thumb-pieces” (or “thumbers”) of beef, mutton, and pork, which the luncher was privileged to cut with his own clasp-knife. Said “thumbers” seem to have gone out of favour with the aristocracy of the Turf; but the true racing or coursing sandwich still forms part of the impedimenta of many a cash-bookmaker, of his clerk, and of many a “little” backer. ’Tis a solid, satisfying sandwich, and is just the sort of nourishment for a hard worker on a bitter November day. Let your steak be grilling, whilst you are enjoying your breakfast—some prefer the ox-portion fried, for these simple speculators have strange tastes—then take the steak off the fire and place it, all hot, between two thick slices of bread. The sandwich will require several paper wrappings, if you value the purity of your pocket-linings. And when eaten cold, the juices of the meat will be found to have irrigated the bread, with more or less “delicious gravy.” And, as Sam Weller ought to have said, “it’s the gravy as does it.”

“But what about the swells?” I fancy I hear somebody asking, “Is my Lord Tomnoddy, or the Duke of Earlswood to be compelled to satisfy his hunger, on a race-course, with tripe and fat bacon? Are you really advising those dapper-looking, tailor-made ladies on yonder drag to insert their delicate teeth in a sandwich which would have puzzled Gargantua to masticate?” Not at all, my good sir, or madam. The well-appointed coach should be well-appointed within and without. Of course the luncheon it contains will differ materially according to the season of the year. This is the sort of meal I will provide, an you will deign to visit the Arabian tent behind my coach, at Ascot:

Lobster mayonnaise, salmon cutlets with Tartar sauce (iced), curried prawns (iced), lobster cutlets, chaud-froid of quails, foie gras in aspic, prawns in ditto, plovers’ eggs in ditto, galantine of chicken, York ham, sweets various, including iced gooseberry fool; and, as the piÈce de rÉsistance, an

Angel’s Pie.

Many people would call this a pigeon pie, for in good sooth there be pigeons in it; but ’tis a pie worthy of a brighter sphere than this.

Six plump young pigeons, trimmed of all superfluous matter, including pinions and below the thighs. Season with pepper and salt, and stuff these pigeons with foie gras, and quartered truffles, and fill up the pie with plovers’ eggs and some good force-meat. Make a good gravy from the superfluous parts of the birds, and some calf’s head stock to which has been added about half a wine-glassful of old Madeira, with some lemon-juice and cayenne. See that your paste be light and flaky, and bake in a moderate oven for three hours. Pour in more gravy just before taking out, and let the pie get cold.

This is a concoction which will make you back all the winners; whilst no heiress who nibbles at it would refuse you her hand and heart afterwards.

This is another sort of

Pigeon Pie

which is best served hot, and is more suited to the dining-room than the race-course.

Line a pie dish with veal force-meat, very highly seasoned, about an inch thick. Place on it some thin slices of fat bacon, three Bordeaux pigeons (trimmed) in halves, a veal sweetbread in slices, an ox palate, boiled and cut up into dice, a dozen asparagus tops, a few button mushrooms (the large ones would give the interior of the pie a bad colour) and the yolks of four eggs. Cover with force-meat, and bake for three hours. Some good veal gravy should be served with this, which I have named

Suffolk Pride.

It is a remarkable fact in natural history that English pigeons are at their best just at the time when the young rooks leave the shelter of their nests. Therefore have I written, in the above recipe, “Bordeaux” pigeons.

Here is a quaint old eighteenth-century recipe, which comes from Northumberland, and is given verbatim, for a

Goose Pie.

Bone a goose, a turkey, a hare, and a brace of grouse; skin it, and cut off all the outside pieces—I mean of the tongue, after boiling it—lay the goose, for the outside a few pieces of hare; then lay in the turkey, the grouse, and the remainder of the tongue and hare. Season highly between each layer with pepper and salt, mace and cayenne, and put it together, and draw it close with a needle and thread. Take 20 lbs. of flour, put 5 lbs. of butter into a pan with some water, let it boil, pour it among the flour, stir it with a knife, then work it with your hands till quite stiff. Let it stand before the fire for half an hour, then raise your pie and set it to cool; then finish it, put in the meat, close the pie, and set it in a cold place. Ornament according to your taste, bandage it with calico dipped in fat. Let it stand all night before baking. It will take a long time to bake. The oven must be pretty hot for the first four hours, and then allowed to slacken. To know when it is enough, raise one of the ornaments, and with a fork try if the meat is tender. If it is hard the pie must be put in again for two hours more. After it comes out of the oven fill up with strong stock, well seasoned, or with clarified butter. All standing pies made in this way.

Verily, in the eighteenth century they must have had considerably more surplus cash and time, and rather more angelic cooks than their descendants!

During cold weather the interior of the coach should be well filled with earthenware vessels containing such provender as hot-pot, hare soup, mullagatawny, lobster À l’AmÉricaine, curried rabbit, devilled larks—with the matÉriel for heating these. Such cold viands as game pie, pressed beef, boar’s head, foie gras (truffled), plain truffles (to be steamed and served with buttered toast) anchovies, etc. The larks should be smothered with a paste made from a mixture of mustard, Chili vinegar, and a little anchovy paste, and kept closely covered up. After heating, add cayenne to taste.

Gourmets interested in menus may like to know what were the first dÉjeuners partaken of by the Tsar on his arrival in Paris in October 1869.

On the first day he had huÎtres, consommÉ, oeufs À la Parisienne, filet de boeuf, pommes de terre, Nesselrode sauce, chocolat.

Next day he ate huÎtres, consommÉ, oeufs Dauphine, rougets, noisettes d’agneau marÉchal, pommes de terre, cailles À la BohÉmienne, poires Bar-le-Duc.

The writer can recall some colossal luncheons partaken of at dear, naughty Simla, in the long ago, when a hill station in India was, if anything, livelier than at the present day, and furnished plenty of food for both mind and body. Our host was the genial proprietor of a weekly journal, to which most of his guests contributed, after their lights; “sport and the drama” falling to the present writer’s share. Most of the food at those luncheons had been specially imported from Europe; and although the whitebait tasted more of the hermetical sealing than of the Thames mud, most of the other items were succulent enough. There were turtle soup, and turtle fins; highly seasoned pÂtÉs of sorts; and the native khansamah had added several dishes of his own providing and invention. A young florican (bustard) is by no means a bad bird, well roasted and basted; and though the eternal vilolif (veal olives) were usually sent away untasted, his snipe puddings were excellent. What was called picheese (twenty-five years old) brandy, from the atelier of Messrs. Justerini and Brooks, was served after the coffee; and those luncheon parties seldom broke up until it was time to dress for dinner. In fact, our memories were not often keen as to anything which occurred after the coffee, and many “strange things happened” in consequence; although as they have no particular connection with high-class cookery, they need not be alluded to in this chapter.

But, as observed before, I am of opinion that luncheon, except under certain circumstances, is a mistake.