On Food and Cooking

The word game is Germanic in origin. Its
original meaning in Old English was
“amusement,” “sport,” and after some
centuries was applied to hunted animals by
people wealthy enough to consider hunting
as entertainment. (Hunt originally meant
“to seize.”) The term venison comes from
the Latin verb venari, “to hunt,” but
ultimately from an Indo-European root
meaning “to desire, to strive for,” which
also gave us the words win, wish, venerate,
Venus, and venom (originally a love
potion). It once meant all hunted animals,
but now refers mainly to deer and antelope,
both ruminants, like cattle and sheep, that
can eat weeds and brush and thrive on
poorer land than their domesticated
relatives.
Chickens, turkeys, and other fowl must be
plucked. The slaughtered birds are usually
immersed in a bath of hot water to loosen the
feathers, plucked by machine, and cooled in a