“De Yankees wuzn' so bad. De mos' dey wanted was sumpin' to eat. Dey was all de time hungry, de fus' thing dey ax for when dey came was sumpin' to put in dey stomach. An' chicken! I ain' never seed even a preacher eat chicken like dem Yankees. I believes to my soul dey ain' never seed no chicken 'twell dey come down here. An' hot biscuit too. I seed a passel of dem eat up a whole sack of flour one night for supper. Georgianna sif' flour 'twell she look white an' dusty as a miller. Dem sojers didn' turn down no ham neither. Dat de onlies' thing dey took from Marse George. Dey went in de smoke house an' toted off de hams an' shoulders. Marse George say he come off mighty light if dat all dey want, 'sides he got plenty of shoats anyhow.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Mince some cold roast chicken, and a like quantity of cold boiled ham. Put the mixture into a saucepan, with enough gravy—chicken or veal—to make a soft paste. If you have no gravy, use a little hot water, a few spoonfuls of cream, and a fair lump of butter. Season with pepper to your taste. Stir while it heats almost to boiling, working it very smooth. In about five minutes after it begins to smoke, take from the fire and spread in a dish to cool. With a good-sized cake-cutter, or a plain thin-edged tumbler, cut some rounds of cold bread, and butter one side of each. Sprinkle the buttered sides with grated cheese, and, when the chicken is cold, put a layer between these. These sandwiches are simple and very good.
Sources: The passage is from United States. Work Projects Administration, Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from , free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Harland, Common Sense in the Household of 1871, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — teal cloth, grapes stamp.