Bury it or cook it in guts?

As I mentioned earlier, Maine Coastal Cooking (Courier-Gazette, Inc., 1963) doesn't just have recipes from 1960s cooks. The end of the book also has recipes and cooking tips from The Accomplished Cook: Or, The Art and Mystery of Cookery (first published in Leistershire, 1664, though the copy here is believed to be from a revision in Boston sometime before 1712).

Even though I characterized the Maine recipes I posted earlier as make-do dishes, they seem positively extravagant next to the recipes from the older book, which are often (understandably!) most interested in preserving the food than anything else.

Don't want your lobster to go bad before you can eat it? (Or should I say "lobfter"? The printer used the old-fashioned s that looks like an f.)

Boil it, wrap it in brined rags, and bury in the cellar in deep "fea-fand" for up to three months. I do not even want to imagine what eating a lobster that had been buried for three months must have been like....

A similar approach might work with venison even after it had gone bad.

I'm not sure how well burying tainted venison in a clean cloth overnight would "take away the corruption, favour, or ftink," but after putting in the work to bury it, maybe families would at least pretend it helped?

And if the family had some ale and vinegar to work with, they could always use a seasoned treatment to try to cover up any off flavors.

What if you were fresh out of venison and wanted to substitute beef without anyone knowing? (This is a really hard scenario for me to imagine, but it must have been a thing!)

Parboil the beef in beer and vinegar, leave it overnight... and maybe it will taste like a tainted deer that you're trying to freshen up, I guess? Yeah, this advice does not really translate for this modern reader, but it must have made sense back then.

And if you have the guts to ask for dessert, well...

...be prepared for rice pudding in guts! It must have been fancy with rosewater, currants, nutmeg, and cinnamon, but I can't get over the thought of rice pudding sausages. At least they don't have to be buried before you can eat them. This book makes me mighty glad to have a refrigerator and freezer!