Grouse are also very nice potted. After they are made ready for cooking, fry a little fat pork and some chopped onion together in a large deep spider for a few minutes, then lay in the grouse, cover the spider, and fry until the outside of each bird is somewhat browned, or for twenty minutes, slowly. Then put them into a granite-ware kettle and stew until tender, which will take from one to two hours. When they are done, lift them out, thicken the liquid slightly with flour, and season it with salt and pepper for a gravy. Serve the grouse on a deep platter with the gravy poured around, or simply season the liquid and cook tiny dumplings in it, which may be served around the birds. Then thicken the liquid and pour over. The amount of onion to be fried with the pork should not exceed half a teaspoon for each bird, and of pork the proportion of a cubic inch to a bird is enough. _Pigeons_ potted according to these directions for grouse are excellent. FIELD-LARKS Field-larks and robins may be prepared and cooked in exactly the same way that reed-birds are done. Robins are good in autumn. VENISON Venison is in season during the late autumn and winter. When "hung" for a proper length of time, it is the most easily digested of all meats. For this reason it is a favorite with epicures who eat late suppers. According to Dr. Beaumont it is digested in _one hour and thirty-five minutes_.[38] Steaks may be taken either from the loin or the round. Broil them according to the rule for beefsteak, and serve very hot with a slice of lemon or a little claret poured over. Venison will not please an epicure unless it is hot and rare when served. To accomplish this in a perfectly satisfactory manner, it has become the fashion in families to have the broiling done on the table, in a chafing-dish, each person attending to his own steak, and cooking it according to his particular fancy. MUTTON A good piece of meat freed from refuse,--that is, indigestible portions such as bone, etc.,--if neatly prepared and _properly cooked_, is practically entirely digested. If carelessly handled and cooked so that its juices are evaporated, and its natural flavors undeveloped or destroyed, there will be more or less waste in the process of digestion. Mutton requires more care in cooking than beef, or, in other words, it is more easily spoiled in that process; but when done with due consideration, it is a most acceptable meat. A thick, carefully broiled, hot, juicy mutton chop just from the coals is a very delicious morsel. The same piece with the adjectives reversed,--that is, done without thought, perhaps raw in the middle, charred on the outside, and cold,--is far from being acceptable to even a healthy person.