It is like this: first, you shoot your partridges …
If – like the great Digby Anderson once wrote – “for some unaccountable reason you don’t shoot yourself”, cadge them from a friend who does. If (gasp!) you don’t know anyone who does, I suppose you can get them, in season, from one of the better charcuteries. But good luck finding the wild pigeon and the snipe (of which more later), other than by shooting them yourself.
The house party assembles on the night before The Night – the venue will have been decided upon some months before, during the course of any number of preparatory meals.
People will arrive at different times, tired from the long drive and a year’s hard toil. There is usually some catching up to do, but conversation is desultory, the jokes poor, and after a light meal it is gratefully to bed.
In the morning it’s a new day.
Breakfast – café au lait or tea, thick toasted slices of farm bread, fresh butter and homemade jam – rejuvenates bodies and souls and should keep them together till luncheon. Then the males of the species get organized in one or two squadrons for a sortie to the market and the butcher’s. The women stay home to do whatever it is that they do (oh, I’ll pay for this …).
At the butcher’s and the market it is a quick job for each squadron leader to identify the meats and produce that we’re after – various cuts of prime beef, lean pork, spare ribs, free-range chicken and several types of smoked sausage (chouriço, linguiça, farinheira, morcela). Also, cabbage, salad greens, tomatoes, fruit – and for their respective wing men to check and settle the bills.
Then, a short drive to have a look at the estuary and the fishing boats in their winter repose, and back home to another light meal – scrambled eggs and green asparagus, perhaps, water or beer, fruit. The talk will be of next summer’s boating trips or great feats of past sailing or shooting prowess (for old minds are prone to embellishing the ordinary), and of the promise of future voyages and days in the field, and of next year's parties. After that, coffee, a book, the day’s papers, a quick siesta.
Come four o'clock, with anticipation mounting, most will be ready for a bracing walk before turning to the serious matters of the day. So, it’s out of the house and into the trees, across the moors, over the dunes and down to the cliffs overlooking the sea – if you strike due west from here Maryland will be the next thing you hit (you may want to think twice about embarking on a such a venture, though, for it would be upwind all the way).
With the light waning and the temperature plummeting, it’s back to the House to light a fire, and to have some tea. It is also at about this time that the first bottle of champagne may be breached. More will follow, to be aligned as they are emptied on top of the wall outside, ready for target practice the next morning.
In the kitchen, it's time to make a start on the soup. Bring a large pot of water to the boil, add all the meats and sausages from the butcher's, season to taste (salt, pepper, a bay leaf), lower the heat and leave to simmer, half covered, for an hour or three. Strain and clarify the stock, which you may now call a consommé. Save the meats for another day. Just before serving, bring the consommé back to the boil and add a few carrot sticks and, after a couple of minutes, one small leaf of cabbage, shredded, per person. Poach for another couple of minutes (leaving the vegetables still crunchy) and serve, piping hot. Simple, sophisticated, delicately smokey (from the sausages); the cabbage and the carrot add visual attraction and texture (and the requisite portion of vegetables to make one feel virtuous).
And it clears the palate for what is to follow – your partridge stuffed with your pigeon stuffed with your snipe, one of each bird for every two of your party. This will have been prepared while the stock was simmering, as it takes time and hard labour. Thus the need for the bracing walk beforehand; and for all that champagne – to lighten the load.
Pluck and draw the birds (quick, if messy), blanch and bone them (difficult, exasperating and time consuming). Season each bird separately (and lightly, each seasoning adding to the total), then stuff each pigeon with a snipe and each partridge with both. Cover with strips of bacon and carefully tie the precious bundles … after which, I’m afraid, je dois vous laisser sur vôtre faim (as it were), this being a friend’s creation, its secrets not to be divulged outside a restricted circle. (Besides, most of the details were lost on the Fool, a mere kitchen helper, with his reasoning more than usually fogged by bubbly vapours). But there may have been chestnuts in the pot, and there was certainly olive oil and onions, and garlic, and bay leaves, and wine. Whatever.
Before serving, cut the birds in half lengthwise, one half to each guest, and lay them cut side down on a slice of freshly fried bread. It may sound busy, or that the birds may lose their specific flavours in the melting pot. But they don’t: the snipe, gamey and strong, the pigeon, subtle, the partridge, delicate.
Serve with wild rice and a simple salad with sauce vinaigrette (salt, pepper, equal dashes of extra virgin olive oil and white wine vinegar. Some mustard if you like. It's not rocket science, so leave the processed seasonings to lazy cooks, please – and the balsamic vinegars to pretentious metrosexuals).
We switch to a good red wine for this, Chrysea or Quinta do Vale Meão if we’re feeling flush (or you may stay with the champagne, which some do). And clear spring water (still, not sparkling, at 15 degrees Celsius, not chilled).
For dessert, mixed slices of Algarve oranges and Azorean pineapple, lightly sugared (to bring out the juices).
Then, coffee or tea; Fortnum & Mason’s chocolate squares with raisins; brandy and liqueurs; Stilton, walnuts and Port; cigars. Take your pick. Pick several.
Lean protein, moderate carbs, plenty of veg, wondrous flavours from local products put on the table by hunter-gatherer-cooks, a soupçon of indulgence from foreign lands. Simple yet exclusive, the New Year’s Eve supper of kings.
Thank you, my dears.
