A hilarious recipe for chicken as extracted from a 14th Century French cookbook."I had came across a manuscript of Le Viander de Taillevent. He was the chef to the Palais Royal in Paris. I think it was the 14th century... And in there was this fascinating recipe for how to roast a chicken. "
"You take the chicken, and you pluck the chicken while it's still alive, and you baste the skin with a mixture of soya, wheat germ and dripping, I think it was. And apparently this makes it look like the skin's been roasted. You then put the head of this live chicken under its tummy and rock it to sleep. Then you get two other chickens and you roast them. And you bring these three chickens out on a tray to the table. You start carving one of the roasted chickens. And. . .the one that is still alive but sleeping goes sort of 'Wha!' head pops up and it runs off down the table."
"And that's Part 1. Then you take this poor chicken, and you kill it, and you stuff its neck with a mixture of quicksilver, which is mercury, and sulfur, and then stitch it up. And apparently obviously I haven't tried this at home, or at work the expanding air in the neck cavity as you roast causes the mercury and the sulfur to react and somehow creates a clucking noise."
"And then you bring this clucking chicken back to the table. So you've taken a live chicken and made it appear dead, and then you've brought it back to life again."
Unbelievable.source:
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I've read a mediaeval one once on how to cook a living chicken, and for it to still be alive until you serve it up Dx
I love stuff like that. I have some books you'd love to read xD
That's just wierd...
I'd like to see the clucking chicken though.. Would be a good party trick..