I have said that the Belgian is a bird-eater, and throughout the
country every species of bird is pressed into service for the table. A
stranger visiting the Ardennes will be struck by the remarkable silence
of the woods, which is caused by the wholesale destruction of the birds.
How the supply is kept up it is difficult to say, but no Belgian dinner
is considered complete without a bird of some sort, and when _grives_
are in season, thousands must be served daily. A _grive_ proper is a
thrush, but I fear that blackbirds and starlings often find their way to
the _casserole_ under the name of a _grive_. They should be cooked with
the trail, in which mountain-ash berries are often found. These give the
bird a peculiar and rather bitter flavour, but the berry that must be
used in the cooking is that of the juniper plant, which grows very
plentifully in Belgium. A traveller through Belgium in the summer or
early autumn should always make a point of ordering _grives_ at a good
restaurant. When _grives_ go out of season, we have woodcock and snipe;
and there are several houses which make a speciality of _Becasses a la
fine Champagne_. At Mons and at Liege, and I think at Charleroi also,
there is every year a woodcock feast, just as there is an oyster feast
at Colchester.
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