The Handy Playing Cards That Taught 17th-Century Cooks to Carve Meat Like a Pro
The decks suggested proper technique, and were a path to class mobility.
Hasnain says:
“Each suit corresponds to a different type of meat. Feeling fishy? Deal the clubs to learn to how to gut a salmon or dismantle a lobster. The diamonds were for fowl, from duck to pheasant to pigeon (which shouldn’t be carved, but simply “cut through the middle from the rump to the neck”). The hearts featured “flesh of beats,” from the “Sir Loyn of Beef” to a haunch of venison—“begun to be cut near the buttock”—and a boars’ head, which “comes to the Table with its Snout standing upward and a sprig of Rosemary tuck[ed] in it.” Coney, or rabbit, was “most times brought to the Table with the Head off” and placed alongside the body. Instructions for carving “baked meats,” such as pies and pasties, were on the spades.”
Posted on 2023-09-28T03:10:28+0000