If care is taken in picking and dressing fowls or birds, there is no
need of washing them. In France it is never done, unless there is
absolutely something to wash off; then it is done as delicately as
possible. In expostulating once with an old negro auntie for soaking all
the blood and flavor out of a fowl, she quickly replied, “Bless my soul,
child! haven’t I cooked chickens for fifty years?”
When you buy a goose or a duck, be sure that it is young. Never buy an
old duck. The first I ever bought were from a penful at market. I
thought myself very clever in choosing the largest, all being one price;
not so clever at dinner, when my husband tried to carve those tough and
aged drakes.