“In this connection, the story of Lemuel Hostitter, who kept the corner grocery in my old town, naturally comes to mind. Lem was probably the meanest white man in the State of Missouri, and it wasn't any walk-over to hold the belt in those days. Most grocers were satisfied to adulterate their coffee with ground peas, but Lem was so blamed mean that he adulterated the peas first. Bought skin-bruised hams and claimed that the bruise was his private and particular brand, stamped in the skin, showing that they were a fancy article, packed expressly for his fancy family trade. Ran a soda-water fountain in the front of his store with home-made syrups that ate the lining out of the children's stomachs, and a blind tiger in the back room with moonshine whiskey that pickled their daddies' insides. Take it by and large, Lem's character smelled about as various as his store, and that wasn't perfumed with lily-of-the-valley, you bet.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
1415. INGREDIENTS.--To every quart of water allow 2 lbs. of loaf sugar; the white of 1 egg. _Mode_.--Put the sugar and water into a stewpan; set it on the fire, and, when the sugar is dissolved, add the white of the egg, whipped up with a little water. Whisk the whole well together, and simmer very gently until it has thrown up all the scum. Take this off as it rises, strain the syrup through a fine sieve or cloth into a basin, and keep it for use.
Sources: The passage is from George Horace Lorimer, Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son: Being the Letters writte, 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 — forest cloth, boar stamp.