2-889-438 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Ortolan, 1850. 'The Ortolan is not famed for its song, which is, however, soft and sweet...it formed one of the costly items of M. Soyer's "Hundred Guinea Dish," at the recent banquet at York...They are taken in traps, from March or April to September...if fed with plenty of millet-seed and other grain, they become sheer lumps of fat, and delicious morsels. They are fattened thus in large establishments in the south of Europe; and Mr. Gould states this to be effected in Italy and the south of France in a dark room. The Ortolan is considered sufficiently fat when it is a handful; and is judged by feeling it, and not by appearance. They should not be killed with violence, like other birds: this might crush and bruise the delicate flesh, and spoil the coup d'oeil - to avoid which, the best mode is to plunge the head of the Ortolan into a glass of brandy...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.