Roasted Snipes

The sauce is the birds' own intestines, fried with chicken livers and passed through a sieve.

From: The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf
Published: 1896
Also printed in: 2 other books
Yikes Scale: Iffy

Exactly as printed, 1896

Pluck, single and draw some snipes and take out the backbones. Chop fine a quantity of fresh pork and mix with it an equal amount of chopped raw mushrooms, one pinch of shallot, some parsley, salt and pepper. Fill the birds with the above mixture, sew them up and truss; fix the snipes on a spit and roast them in front of a clear fire, or, if not convenient, roast them in the oven, basting them constantly with butter. Place some slices of bread underneath the birds in the drippingpan. Put two sliced onions into a stewpan with a small lump of butter, season with salt and pepper, and fry until well browned; then dredge in a little flour, and stir in by degrees about one-half pint of stock, and boil it gently until the onions are cooked. Fry the trails of the snipes with three chickens' livers, season them, pound and pass them through a fine hair-sieve. Put the puree of trails into a saucepan with a little white wine and the onions, stir them over the fire for a few minutes, but do not allow them to boil. When cooked remove the snipes from the fire, brush them over with melted glaze, put the pieces of bread from the drippingpan on a hot dish, stand the snipes on them, pour the sauce over, and serve.

The Cook Book by Oscar of the Waldorf, 1896. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

The trails are the intestines, which snipe and woodcock are traditionally cooked with rather than gutted of. Here they are cooked and sieved into the sauce, which is the classic treatment and entirely deliberate.

Snipe is a legal game bird in season in the US and elsewhere. Nothing here is dangerous; it is simply a dish that requires you to be comfortable with what the sauce is made of.

Notes from the 21st century

“Single” means singe. After plucking, the remaining hairs and pin feathers are burned off over a flame. A gas burner does it in seconds.
Why these birds are not drawn. Snipe and woodcock feed by probing, and their gut is comparatively clean. It is the traditional justification, and it is why the practice persisted.
Oscar was cooking for the Waldorf. This is not rustic. It is a hotel preparation for guests who expected the classic treatment.

Also in this book

Almond Milk — Four ounces of almonds to a pint of water — “either bitter or sweet,” says Oscar, as though it made no difference.
Braised Calf's Head (with Calf's Head, Financiere) — Boned, stuffed and sewn shut — and the Financière version forms the brains into cakes and skewers cockscombs on top.
Cleaning Codfish — Cod is crimped by being notched with a knife while still partly alive. Some cooks object.

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