The Irish standard., 1891-10-24
SPURIOUS GAME.
Deception Practiced by Tricky
Restaurant Keepers.

Restaurant Keepers.
Hew People Who Can for quail or
Canvasback Duck Are Imposed
Upon - Cheap Substitutes
for Choice Birds.
"A great many persons who go 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 air OF
authority about canvasbacks, quail,
prairie chicken and English snipe, and
tell you that they drop into this and that
place SO many times week to get some
Of the choice game. But the restaurant
people could unfold a 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 a 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 a few notable in
stances" says q writer in Once Week.
''The canvasback is the most priced of
al 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-
naerous, 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 a
bill of fare in any pretentious eating
place during the fall and winter with
cut nearly always finding canvasback
upon it. The restaurant man knows
tho 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. have had domestic
duck served to re twice in New York
for canvasback in well-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 canvasback is unmistakablc
w OnC WIAO LIDS OACC hhc'V1 y
eaten it.
II know no game bird more fashion
able than quail, and there is no bird
that finds more substitutes. Quail are
plentiful but the supply does not near
~ equal the demand, and this is the
reason that one gets so often, instead
of quail, pigeons of every age, meadow
To-. hot
not more 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-awake
caterers bestir themselves to supply
their patrons. But it is precious little
SQUAD they give. The squad, as my
readers know, is a young pigeon, fat,,
tender and delicately favored. He is a:
rolly-polly, and his bones are soft. But
remember, all who read this, what the
SQUAD is usually like that the waiter
serves you. Young pigeons, or SQUAD,
are not numerous in the market, and
comparatively few of them reach the;
restaurant. Of this I have been as
sured by several game-dealers. What
passes for SQUAD are old pigeons, some
of them heavy-boned and tough robins,
thrushes, blackbirds, and now and
again reed-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 are either Long
Island squads or Philadelphia squads.
''Prairie chicken looks we'll on a bill
of fare, and it has fine name. So it
comes to pass that this bird is in brisk
demand But the restaurauteur has no
conjunction in serving up chickens,
and even old hens, obtained from barn
yards, for the fnely-favored denizen
of the prairies. I assert, without fear
of contradiction, that over half the
prairie chicken served in restaurants
consists OF domestic poultry.
'sThe reed bird is another popular
morsel at every public table; but the
greatest misrepresentation exists about
the bird. It is really a bobolink, and,
on it's 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 the reed
bird. When it reaches Carolina and be-
takes itself to the rice fields it is
known as the rice bird During it's
southern passage it is plump, fat and
favored and a very choice
table bird. But not a third of what are
sold under its name are genuine. Eng
[ish sparrows are shot by the million
almost and palmed of 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 are no English snipe
In this country, and there are none I'M
ported, which disposes of that imposi-
lion. The bird served here is the Will
son snipe.
Gigantic Pumps.
In lieu of mourning the immense ex-
pense of excavating the London docks
10 accommodate the increased size
l. ~~-xlor~, lorna 1,,1TnroInr