[Sca-cooks] Deer Gelding

[Sam Wallace]

Hello,

OK, I'm sure that made a few people wince. Sorry for that. However, I have
been working on a transcription project of The good Hufwiues handmaid and I
came across a reference to "A gelded Deare." This implies that deer were
being captured and kept or domesticated. I know that there were hunting
parks with captive herds in them by the time of this work (1594), so it
would seem likely that this is where such animals were being drawn from.
Also, there is no specific recipe given. Nor is there a specific name
(halfer) for such a beast until 1814, which would imply too that they were
relatively uncommon up to that point.

Has anyone seen a reference to this practice anywhere else? I have not been
able to locate another reference to this and it just seemed an odd thing to
include in a cookbook if I had never seen note of it before. I am also
trying to find if there is a note in any treatise on hunting, but no luck so
far.

Thanks,

Guillaume