“_La soupe sur la table_, we attacked a smoking tureen of _bouillon gras_, while a heaping dish of toasted bread stood in the middle. The captain loaded my plate with two slices of this sunburnt material, which he deluged with a couple of ladles of savory broth. A long fast is a good sauce, and I need not assert that I began _sans facon_. My appetite was sharp, and the vapor of the liquid inviting. For a while there was a dead silence, save when broken by smacking and relishing lips. Spoonful after spoonful was sucked in as rapidly as the heat allowed; and, indeed, I hardly took time to bestow a blessing on the cook. Being the guest of the day, my plate had been the first one served, and of course, was the first one finished. Perhaps I rather hurried myself, for lenten diet made me greedy and I was somewhat anxious to anticipate the calls of my companions on the tureen. Accordingly, I once more ballasted my plate with toast, and, with a charming bow and a civil "_s'il vous plait_," applied, like Oliver Twist, "for more."”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
91. IT HAS BEEN ASSERTED, that English cookery is, nationally speaking, far from being the best in the world. More than this, we have been frequently told by brilliant foreign writers, half philosophers, half _chefs_, that we are the _worst_ cooks on the face of the earth, and that the proverb which alludes to the divine origin of food, and the precisely opposite origin of its preparers, is peculiarly applicable to us islanders. Not, however, to the inhabitants of the whole island; for, it is stated in a work which treats of culinary operations, north of the Tweed, that the "broth" of Scotland claims, for excellence and wholesomeness, a very close second place to the _bouillon_, or common soup of France. "_Three_ hot meals of broth and meat, for about the price of ONE roasting joint," our Scottish brothers and sisters get, they say; and we hasten to assent to what we think is now a very well-ascertained fact.
Sources: The passage is from Theodore Canot, Captain Canot, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Beeton, The Book of Household Management of 1861, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — slate cloth, sheaf stamp.