“On Saturdays Pustovalov and she used to go to the evening service; on holidays to early mass, and they walked side by side with softened faces as they came home from church. There was a pleasant fragrance about them both, and her silk dress rustled agreeably. At home they drank tea, with fancy bread and jams of various kinds, and afterwards they ate pie. Every day at twelve o'clock there was a savoury smell of beet-root soup and of mutton or duck in their yard, and on fast-days of fish, and no one could pass the gate without feeling hungry. In the office the samovar was always boiling, and customers were regaled with tea and cracknels. Once a week the couple went to the baths and returned side by side, both red in the face.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Bone a full grown young duck, and a fine young fowl of a good size. Season them both well with mace, pepper, salt and allspice. Put the fowl within the duck, and a calf’s tongue that has been pickled red, and boiled, within the fowl. Make the whole to lie close. The skin of the legs and wings should be drawn inwards, that the body may lie smooth, Put the birds into a raised pie, or small piedish, and cover it with a thickish paste. Bake in a slow oven to eat cold. The old Staffordshire raised pies were made as above, but a turkey was put over the duck, and a goose over that, forming a very large pie.
Sources: The passage is from Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Rundell, New system of domestic cookery, formed upon principles of of 1806, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — moss cloth, teapot stamp.