Many poulterers singe and draw fowl; they also remove the tendons from the drumsticks, whereby that joint is very much improved. The dealer has all the conveniences for this work, and, if he attend to these matters, the time and strength of the housekeeper are saved. At the same time he will need looking after; the lungs and bean-shaped kidneys lie in small cavities, and only the careful, painstaking marketman takes trouble to remove them.

If this work be done at home, the first thing, the fowl having been picked, is to remove pin-feathers and all feather stumps remaining in the skin; a strawberry huiler is the best thing yet devised for this purpose. Singeing is next in order. One or two tablespoonfuls of alcohol ignited on a tin dish affords the best means for doing this; lighted paper may also be used. Take the bird by the head and feet and turn it constantly, that the flame may touch every part. To singe small birds run four or five at a time a little distance apart on a long skewer, then taking the skewer by the ends pass them over the flame, turning the skewer meanwhile.

Cut off the head - the heads of canvasback and other choice varieties of wild duck and those of small birds are often left on the body - and after loosening the crop by passing the finger around the same, draw out the gullet with crop attached and the windpipe; if the crop be not very full - as it should not be - this may be done without making a slit in the skin of the neck. When necessary to cut the skin it should be done at the back. Cut off the neck bone even with the top of the breast, but do not cut off the skin. When the fowl is trussed, the skin may be brought down under the tips of the wings and fastened either with a skewer or the thread that is used in trussing.

Cut carefully just through the skin of the leg at the joint, or make a cut lengthwise through the skin below the joint; at either place the tendons running up into the drumstick will be exposed and with a trussing needle or skewer they may be drawn out one after another. At the market the poulterer, after slitting the skin to lay the tendons bare, hangs the fowl, first by the tendons in one leg and then by those in the other, upon a meat hook, and with a single pull the tendons are drawn. The Little Giant tendon puller has been devised lately; by its use all the tendons in one leg of a fowl may be drawn at once. When one sees how easily these are removed, it seems strange that this really marked improvement in the dressing of turkeys is so universally omitted. Cut a small opening just through the skin under the rump, near the vent, insert at first one and afterward two fingers and pass them around close to the body, between the body and internal organs, at first close to the breast bone, then reach in beyond the liver and heart and loosen on either side down close to the back. After all the internal organs are loosened, take hold of the gizzard, which lies at the base of the breast bone, and draw this out gently and all that has been loosened will follow. In drawing a fowl avoid breaking the gall-bladder attached to the liver, the liquid from which will cause a bitter taste in whatever it comes in contact with. The lungs, lying in cavities under the breast, and the kidneys in cavities in the backbone, need to be taken out separately.

Wipe out, or rinse if needed, and dry thoroughly. All birds to be served whole are cleaned and drawn after this manner.