A modern-day supermarket chicken normally comes with legs and wings ready-trussed with butcher’s string. This ensures that these mobile elements are kept tightly secured to the body to prevent them from drying out when roasted. Early modern cooks had to know how to truss a far greater variety of birds and beasts, as seen by everything for sale in Snyders’ Fowl Market (displayed nearby). Here are two explanatory diagrams of how to truss a chicken or young turkey and a hare, each requiring a specific technique on account of their different shape and size.

Private collection