“They all went into the dining-room, and every time found on the table exactly the same things: a dish of oysters, a piece of ham or veal, sardines, cheese, caviare, mushrooms, vodka, and two decanters of wine.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
(ENTRÉE.) Slice very thin the white part of some cold veal, divide and trim it into scallops not larger than a shilling, and lay it into a clean saucepan or stewpan. Wipe with a bit of new flannel and a few grains of salt, from a quarter to half a pint of mushroom-buttons, and slice them into a little butter which just begins to simmer; stew them in it from twelve to fifteen minutes, without allowing them to take the slightest colour; then lift them out and lay them on the veal.
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 Acton, Modern cookery for private families of 1845, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — moss cloth, teapot stamp.