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Hens are best before they have ever laid, and yet are full of eggs; they also are best in January, and cold months, because long rest and sleep in the long nights makes them then fattest. Their flesh is very temperate (whilst they are young) of good juice, and large nourish∣ment, strengthening natural heat, engendring good blood, sharpning a dull appetite, quickning the eysight,
nourishing the brain and seed, and agreeing with all ages and complexions; for they are neither so hot as to turn into choler, nor so cold as to turn into fleagm, nor so dry as to be converted into melancholie (and yet Rhasis imagineth them to have a secret property of breeding the Gout and Hemorrhoids) but turn wholly, or for the most part into blood, making a lively colour in the face, and quickning both the eyesight and every sense. Pullets flesh (saith Avicen) helpeth the wit, cleareth the voice, and encreaseth the seed, which is a manifest argument that it nourisheth greatly; which also Gallen confirmeth by ma∣ny other arguments; but that argument of encreasing seed is the chiefest of all, seed being the superfluity or a∣bundance of nourishment. Hens flesh is sweetest, when they are not too much fed, but dig out their meat with their heels in a clean flour; for exercise consumeth the superfluous moisture, which else cannot but make them more unpleasant. Nevertheless the Delians used to fat them with bread steept in milk, and Platina, Apicius, and Stendelius shew many waies to fatten them; but the best way is to let them fat themselves with pure corne cast a∣mongst chaff, that by exercise of their legs in shuffl••ng and scraping they may make their flesh to eat better, and prove more wholesome; and yet by your leave (Mr. Poulter) the fattest Hen or Capon is not wholesomest, but that which is of a middle fatness; for as in a man too much fatness is both a cause of diseases, and a disease it self, so falleth it out in their bodies; which how can they be wholesome meat unto others, when they are di∣seased in themselves?
Of a black Hen the broath is whitest, and of a black Goat the milk is purest; the most part of Hens and Hares are scurvy and leprous.
Elluch. c. 2. l. 3
Rhas. 24. Con.
3 de fac alim.
Plin. lib. 10. c. 1