““Sit ye down, Mr. Lowther, and make yourself at home,” exclaimed the hospitable Mr. Grunderson. “A knife and fork for this gentleman, Thomas; and look sharp about it. You’ll find this here as fine a bit of beef as ever was cut from an Aberdeen bullock; and there ain’t no bullocks equal to a Scotch short-horn, go where you will. Let me give you a slice out of the alderman’s walk, which was a name my father always gave to the undercut; and a very good father he was too, though he never thought of my sittin’ down to table upon the very spot where he built hisself a tool-house forty year ago, when you couldn’t have got six pound an acre per annum for any ground about here. There’s a pigeon-pie at the other end of the table, and there’s some of your foreign kickshaws,--cutlets a la curlpapers, and mutton-chops a la smashed potato, _I_ call ’em; for I’m not a young man, Mr. Lowther, and I can’t remember your _soubeeses_, and your _maintenongs_, and your _jardineers_, and so on, as my daughter can. We don’t have the men to wait at lunch, for my daughter says it isn’t manners; and I’m very glad it ain’t, for I can’t say I enjoy my meals when I have to take ’em with a couple of fellows shoving vegetable-dishes and sauce-boats at me every two minutes, and never shoving the right ones; for I’m blest if I ever knew ’em yet to shove me the cucumber before I’d half finished my salmon, though they do call themselves experienced servants. Howsomedever, if we must dine ally Rousse, and wrap our mutton-chops in greasy paper and call ’em maintennong, we must, and there’s an end of it; but I don’t mind confessing to you, Mr. Lowther, that this is the time I make _my_ dinner, and it’s no use frowning at me, Rosa, for I don’t care who knows it.””
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
1 can salmon ½ tablespoon salt 1½ tablespoons sugar ½ tablespoon flour 1 teaspoon mustard Few grains cayenne Yolks 2 eggs 1½ tablespoons melted butter ¾ cup milk ¼ cup vinegar ¾ tablespoon granulated gelatine 2 tablespoons cold water Remove salmon from can, rinse thoroughly with hot water, and separate in flakes. Mix dry ingredients, add egg yolks, butter, milk, and vinegar. Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly until mixture thickens. Add gelatine soaked in cold water. Strain, and add to salmon. Fill individual mould, chill, and serve with [Illustration: CHAUD-FROID OF EGGS.—_Page 385._ ] [Illustration: CAPON IN ASPIC GARNISHED WITH COOKED YOLKS AND WHITES OF EGGS CUT IN FANCY SHAPES, PISTACHIO NUTS, AND TRUFFLES.—_Page 384._ ] [Illustration: HARVARD PUDDING SERVED WITH C
Sources: The passage is from M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon, Only a clod, 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 — forest cloth, ship stamp.