“I did not think very much about this lady then, for I had an impression that it might be Caddy. Besides, my attention was diverted by my visitor, who was cold after her ride and looked hungry and who, our dinner being brought in, required some little assistance in arraying herself with great satisfaction in a pitiable old scarf and a much-worn and often-mended pair of gloves, which she had brought down in a paper parcel. I had to preside, too, over the entertainment, consisting of a dish of fish, a roast fowl, a sweetbread, vegetables, pudding, and Madeira; and it was so pleasant to see how she enjoyed it, and with what state and ceremony she did honour to it, that I was soon thinking of nothing else.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Take a quart of whole oatmeal, steep it in warm milk over night, & then drain the groats from it, boil them in a quart or three pints of good cream; then the oatmeal being boil'd and cold, have tyme, penniroyal, parsley, spinage, savory, endive, marjoram, sorrel, succory, and strawberry leaves, of each a little quantity, chop them fine, and put them to the oatmeal, with some fennil-seed, pepper, cloves, mace, and salt, boil it in a napkin, or bake it in a dish, pie, or guts. Sometimes of the former pudding you may leave out some of the herbs, and add these, penniroyal, savory, leeks, a good big onion, sage, ginger, nutmeg, pepper, salt, either for fish or flesh days, with butter or beef-suet, boil'd or baked in a dish, napkin, or pie.
Sources: The passage is from Charles Dickens, Bleak House, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from May, The accomplisht cook of 1660, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — ochre cloth, pudding stamp.