“Cornelia did her own shopping. She got a live and lively lobster, done up in a strong paper bag, with two holes in it so that he might breathe; like a condemned man, he must be kept alive till the moment of his execution. She got a small chicken, and some green peas, and a head of lettuce, and climbed the hill with them in a little basket, smiling to herself--it was old, _old_ “Boston”! The Negro maid was a-flutter, and Cornelia was a-flutter--treating Henry as if he were royalty. The remarkable dewberries had been brought by the chauffeur, each wrapped separately in tissue paper, to keep it from a bruise; they now reposed in whipped cream and sugar, on top of a thin flaky cake.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
2 lb. lobster ½ cup soft stale bread crumbs ½ cup milk ¼ cup cream 2 teaspoons Anchovy essence ½ teaspoon salt Few grains cayenne Whites 3 eggs Remove lobster meat from shell and chop finely. Cook bread and milk ten minutes. Add cream, seasonings, and whites of eggs beaten until stiff. Turn into one slightly buttered timbale mould and two slightly buttered Dario moulds. Bake as Lobster Timbales. Remove to serving dish, having larger mould in centre, smaller moulds one at either end. Pour around Lobster Sauce I, sprinkle with coral rubbed through a sieve, and garnish with pieces of lobster shell from tail, and parsley.
Sources: The passage is from Upton Sinclair, Boston : $b a novel, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Farmer, The Boston cooking-school cook book of 1896, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — burgundy cloth, amphora stamp.