SC - Peacocks (was Modern sanitary concerns...

[david friedman]

At 5:36 PM -0700 10/23/98, kat wrote:
>What I did for my Above/Below the Salt feast was to cheat heinously...
>
>I had a canton member sculpt me a peacock head from Femo (artists' clay),
>then dressed the bird liberally in the featheriest, blue-greeniest herbs I
>could find (mostly dill and fennel).
>
>We then bleached the quills of a bunch of peacock feathers and threaded
>them into the skin at the tail.  Then arranged a "tail" of long peacock
>feathers and sandwiched the bottom inches between two trays, serving the
>bird on the top tray, of course.  The space between the tail of the bird
>and the "tail" of feathers was liberally stuffed with parsley...
>
Chiquart (author of Du Fait de Cuisine, 1420) cheated too. He put the
peacock tail feathers on a roasted goose; he doesn't say how he treated the
skin.

"And for this, I Chiquart have said before, I would like to teach to the
said master who is to make it the art of the said peacock, and this to do
courtesy and honor to his lord and master, that is to take a large fat
goose, and spit it well and put it to roast well and cleanly and gaily
[quickly?], and to recloth it in the plumage of the peacock and put it in
the place where the peacock should be set, next to the fountain of love
[this is part of an elaborate subtlety], with the wings extended; and make
the tail spread, and to hold the neck raised high, as if it were alive, put
a stick of wood inside the said neck which will make it hold straight. And
for this the said cook must not flay the said peacock, but take the pinions
to put on the goose and take the skin of the rump of the peacock where the
feathers are held all together; and when it goes onto the goose, to make
good skewers to make the said goose spread its tail as properly as the
peacock if it were alive."

Elizabeth of Dendermonde/Betty Cook


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