STUFFING FOR HARE

2 oz. beef suet
3 oz. bread crumbs, fine
1 tsp. parsley
1/2 tsp. shallot, minced
1 tsp. marjoram, lemon thyme, or winter savory
1 tsp. grated lemon peel
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1 egg
Liver from hare, optional

Two ounces of beef suet, chopped fine; three ounces of fine bread-crumbs; parsley, a drachm; eschalot, half a drachm; a drachm of marjoram, lemon-thyme or winter savory; a drachm of grated lemon-peel, and the same of pepper and salt: mix these with the white and yelk of an egg; do not make it thin--it must be of cohesive consistence; if your stuffing is not stiff enough, it will be good for nothing: put it in the hare, and sew it up.
If the liver is quite sound, you may parboil it, and mince it very fine, and add it to the above.

The Cook's Oracle by William Kitchiner, MD, New York, 1829

Comment: A "drachm" is a very small quantity (the term was used by chemists and pharmacists of the day) and is less than an eighth of a teaspoon. "Pinch" is about right. Although Dr. Kitchiner was employed specifically to "Americanize" an English cookbook for the New World audience, he overlooked a good many opportunities to do precisely that. One of them is notable here: there are no hares in America. Hares are a European species. What we have here are rabbits. They may be jackrabbits, or bunny rabbits, or a number of other regional varieties of either name or subspecies, but they are all rabbits. Not hares.

Of course you are perfectly free to use this stuffing on rabbits, although they tend to be just a bit smaller than their Euro cousins. Make less stuffing, or get more rabbits. If you have a shortage of rabbits, just plant a garden, and you will suddenly have more rabbits than you would have ever dreamed existed in three surrounding counties. Any sentimental thoughts you may have had about the creatures will, at this point, disappear.

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