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Poultry and Game 43

The light meat from the breast of poultry is very tender, but not so well
flavored as the leg.

Selecting Poultry—Chicken not more than 5 months old is “spring
chicken”; chicken over a year old, fowl. Full grown poultry is finer in
flavor than young birds.

In a chicken or young fowl the feet are yellow and soft, and the breast-
bone yielding. Older fowl have pins g Seong a hard breast-bone, thicker
irs.

-and yellower skin, and more fat, and

A young turkey is known by the same points as a young fowl. Good
turkeys have, besides plump breasts, black legs and white flesh. A young
gobbler has small spurs. Asa rule hen turkeys are best.

In a young duck or goose, the windpipe is brittle enough to snap readily
between the thumb and finger; and the feet are soft and yellow. Neither
ducks nor geese are good if more than 1 year old.

Dressing and Cleaning Poultry—Remove hairs and down by singeing
over aflame. Draw out pin-feathers, using a small pointed knife or tweezers.
Cut off the head. Cut through skin around leg 1} inches below the leg
joint, care being taken not to cut tendons; snap bone at this cut; then pull off
the foot, and with it the tendons. In old birds remove tendons separately,
using a steel skewer. Cut through skin below breast-bone, just large enough
to admit hand. With the hand remove the entrails, gizzard, heart, and liver.
Be careful not to thrust the finger into the centre, for if the gall bladder is
broken, it will impart a bitter taste to whatever it may touch. Remove
lungs and kidneys from ribs and backbone, also crop and windpipe, draw
down neck skin, cut off neck close to body, leaving skin long enough to
fasten under the back. Remove oil bag and wash bird carefully, then wipe
inside and outside.

If there is disagreeable odor, suggesting that fowl may have been kept
too long, clean at once, wash inside and out with soda water, and sprinkle
inside with charcoal, and place some under wings.

To Truss a Fowl—After stuffing the fowl, sew the skin of the neck over
the back. Then run a long skewer through the wing, and then through the
body and out slg the other wing, pressing them close to the body.
Also press a skewer through the thigh and body, and out through the other
thigh. Pass a string over the projecting ends of the skewers, and tie it
firmly at the back to keep the bird trussed. The legs can be crossed over
the tail and tied. The wings and thighs can be tied in place by winding a
string around the body, if you have no skewers. Cut the string off carefully
when done, so as not to tear the flesh.

To Make Old Fowls Tender—Take an old fowl and stew or steam it
from 2 to 4 hours; then roast it in the oven, basting frequently.

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