Potted Meats

All methods of preserving meat, birds and fish without salting or smoking were of the greatest importance until the twenties of our own century. Almost all early cookbooks give recipes for ‘potting’, which was the term generally used in English cooking, many of them indistinguishable from recipes for French pâtés and terrines, but some, particularly those for whole birds or joints, peculiar to English tables and of an excellent simplicity. For all these the spices with which they were seasoned and the clarified butter with which they were covered and sealed were the chief preserving agents.