“But Bobtail magnified the trials and tribulations of that grand dinner in the cabin of the Penobscot, for, by keeping his "weather eye" open, he hardly sinned against any of the proprieties of polite society, and some of the ladies even remarked how well he behaved for a poor boy. The dinner was finished at last, and "it was a tip-top dinner, too," for besides chowder and fried fish, there were roast beef and roast chicken, boiled salmon, puddings, pies, and ice-cream. Perhaps Bobtail ate too much for strict gentility, but he excused himself by declaring that not only the stewards, but all the party, "kept making him eat more of the fixins."”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
The quality of the various articles employed in the composition of puddings and pies varies so much, that two puddings, made exactly according to the same receipt, will be so different[392-*] one would hardly suppose they were made by the same person, and certainly not with precisely the same quantities of the (apparently) same ingredients. Flour fresh ground, pure new milk, fresh laid eggs, fresh butter, fresh suet, &c. will make a very different composition, than when kept till each article is half spoiled. Plum puddings, when boiled, if hung up in a cool place in the cloth they are boiled in, will keep good some months; when wanted, take them out of the cloth, and put them into a clean cloth, and as soon as warmed through, they are ready. MEM.--In composing these receipts, the quantities of eggs, butter, &c.
Sources: The passage is from Oliver Optic, Little Bobtail, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Kitchiner, The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual of 1817, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — ochre cloth, pudding stamp.