The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1891-10-16
SPURIOUS GAME.
Deception Practiced by Tricky
Restaurant Keepers.
How People Who Call for Quail OF
Canvasbaok Duck Arc Imposed
Upon = Cheap Substitutes
for Choice Birds.

IA great many persons who 90 to
restaurants, especially the better class
OF eating houses, for their meals, wish
to be considered experts In the matter
of dishes. They talk with an mir of
authority about canvasbacks, quail,
prairie chicken and English snipe, and
tell you that they drop into this and that
place SO many times n week to get somo
OF the choice game. But the restaurant
people could unfold n tale which would
make all the fashionable gourmands
feel very silly if they only told it. The
truth OF the matter is that one very sell
dom gets in restaurant in New York
or any other considerable city in this
country the game that is marked on the
bill of fare.
"Let me take n few notable in
Stances" says writer in Once Week
"The canvasbacl1 is the most priced of
all the game birds that we have. It's
chief habitat is the Chesapeake bay,
where during the fall it feeds on the
wild celery which imparts the tang, or
flavor, SO delightful to the discerning
palate. But this bird is not very nu-
mcrous, and the numbers reaching the
market are not very great. Private in
dividuals buy the greater part of them,
and the few remaining go to the res
taurants. Yet you cannot take up n
bill of fare in any prctentious eating
place during the fall and winter with
out nearly always finding canvasback
upon it. The restaurant man knows
the value of the name, so he serves up
teal, wood duck, black duck and often
the domestic duck for canvasback
Hardly ever does his customer know
the deception. 1 have had domestic
duck served to me twice in New York
for canvasbacls in a wcll-known cafe,
and on five or six other occasions have
been served with wood duck, black duck,
etc., for the Chesapeake bird. The
flavor of cauvasback is unmistakable
to anyone who has once knowingly
eaten it.
81 know no game bird more fashion
able than quail, and there is no bird
that finds moro substitutes. Quail arc
plentiful, but the supply does not near
ly equal the demand, and this is the
reason that one gets so often, instead
of quail, pigeons of every age, meadow
larks, and even robins. am sure that
not moro than half the quail served in
restaurants are genuine.
There is nothing more delicious
than squad on toast, and nothing in
larger demand. Hence the wide-awalze
caterers bestir themselves to supply
their patrons. But it is precious little
SQUAD they give. The squad, us my
readers know, is young pigeon, fat,
tender and delicately favored. He is a
olly-polly, and his bones are soft. But
all WHO read this, what the
squad is usually like that the waiter
serves you. Young pigeons, or SQUAD,
arc not numerous in the market, and
comparatively few of them reach the
restaurant. OF this have been as
surcd by several game-dealcrs. What
passes for squad arc old pigeons, some
of them heavy-boned and tough robins,
thrushcs, blacl1birds, and now and
again rced-birds. These are unblush-
ingly served everywhere, and if you
ask the New York waiter: What are
these?' he will tell you, nine times out
out of ten. that they arc either Long
Island SOUNDS or Philadelphia SQUADS.
prairie chiclscn looks we'll on n bill
of fare. and it has q fine name. So it
comes to pass that this bird is in brisk
demand. But the rcstaurauteur has no
conjunction in serving up chickens,
and even old hens, obtained from barn
yards, for the fincly-havorcd dcnizen
of the prairics. assert, without fear
of contradiction, that over half the
prairie chicken served in restaurants
consists of domestic poultry.
1.-The reed bird is another popular
morsel at every public table; but the
greatest misapprehcnsion exists about
the bird. 1t is really bobolink, and,
on its passage to the south in the fall
swarms through the meadows of wild
oats in the Potomac marshes. 1t is
killed here under the name of tho reed
bird. When it reaches Carolina and be.
takes itself to the rice fields it is
known as the rice bird During its
southern passage it is plump, fat and
deliciously favored and q very choice
table bird. But not third of what arc
sold under its name are genuine. Eng
lish sparrows are shot by the million
almost and palncd off to the public as
reed birds; SO are sparrows and
thrushes, by hundreds of thousands.
"You find everywhere staring at you
on the bills OF fare the word English
snipe. Now, there arc no English snipe
in this country, and there are mono i'm
ported, which disposes of that imposi-
ton. The bird served here is the Will
son snipc.