“Pie was served; then, I remember, with long intervals between, during which we drank home-made liquors, they gave us a stew of pigeons, some dish of giblets, roast sucking-pig, partridges, cauliflower, curd dumplings, curd cheese and milk, jelly, and finally pancakes and jam. At first I ate with great relish, especially the cabbage soup and the buckwheat, but afterwards I munched and swallowed mechanically, smiling helplessly and unconscious of the taste of anything. My face was burning from the hot cabbage soup and the heat of the room. Ivan Ivanitch and Sobol, too, were crimson.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Aitchbone, weighing 5 lbs. 4 cups potatoes, cut in ¼ inch slices ──────┬────────────────────────────────── Turnip│⅔ cup each, cut in half-inch cubes Carrot│ ──────┴────────────────────────────────── ½ small onion, cut in thin slices ¼ cup flour Salt Pepper Wipe meat, remove from bone, cut in one and one-half inch cubes, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and dredge with flour. Cut some of the fat in small pieces and try out in frying-pan. Add meat and stir constantly, that the surface may be quickly seared; when well browned, put in kettle, and rinse frying-pan with boiling water, that none of the goodness may be lost. Add to meat remaining fat, and bone sawed in pieces; cover with boiling water and boil five minutes, then cook at a lower temperature until meat is tender (time required being about three hours). Add carrot, turnip, and onion, with salt and pepper the last hour of cooking. Pa
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 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 — moss cloth, teapot stamp.