- a large chicken for the pot (a bird for the gourmet rather than the ornithologist); a young hen which has not begun to lay; (figuratively) an unmarried woman.
This mouthwatering suggestion from Elizabeth Cleland's A New and Easy Method of Cookery (1759) makes a change from the common Scottish stuffing of fried onions and oatmeal:
Chickens farced with Oisters... You may do Howtoudies or any white Fowl, the same way.
And a recipe for romance:
Doun below this auld howtowdie lived a superannuated patriarchal widower.
(JAMES SMITH Canty Jock 1882)
And here is a picture of connubial harmony:
Chanticleer [name for a cock], sae fu' o' pride... Wi's hen and 'toudies by his side
(R. BROWN Lintoun Green 1817)