“We had dined solidly, with old English ale, at "The Cock," in Fleet Street. Perhaps tomato soup, mutton cutlets, quarts of bitter, apple and blackberry tart and cream, macaroni cheese, coffee, and kuemmel are hardly in the right key for an evening with Chopin. But I am not one of those who take their pleasures sadly. If I am to appreciate delicate art, I must be physically well prepared. It may be picturesque to sit through a Bayreuth Festival on three dates and a nut, but monkey-tricks of that kind are really a slight on one's host. However, I felt very fat, physically, and very Maeterlinckian, spiritually, as we clambered into a cab and swung up the great bleak space of Kingsway.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
1 pint of meat stock. 1 quart of stewed tomatoes. 1 teaspoonful of sugar. 2 teaspoonfuls of salt. 1/4 teaspoonful of pepper. 1 gill of cold water. 2 tablespoonfuls of corn-starch. 1/2 pint of broken macaroni. 1 tablespoonful of butter. The stock can be made with any bits of dry hard meat, or the bones from roasted or broiled meat; or one can take the water in which a fowl was boiled. Put the tomatoes and stock in a stewpan and set on the fire. Mix the corn-starch with the cold water, and stir into the boiling liquid. Add also the sugar, salt, and pepper. Put the macaroni in a stewpan with a quart of boiling water and boil for twenty minutes. Pour off the water, and put the macaroni in the soup. Add the butter at the same time, and cook for ten minutes longer. If the soup be preferred smooth, it can be strained before the macaroni is added.
Sources: The passage is from Thomas Burke, Nights in London, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Parloa, Miss Parloa's Young Housekeeper of 1893, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — oxblood cloth, cheese stamp.