“Down we sat at his table, and had a dinner of small rice, pea pie, and roast turkey, washed down by a bottle of fine old Madeira, which he called “the blood of his ancestors.” I looked in vain for a side-board to put silver on, or any evidence of any past fête having been given on the premises. Our host was a thoroughly local man; one of those men who, when in Paris, would say, “I’m going to town,” when he proposed returning to Savannah, which, at that time, was to him the metropolis of America. This gentleman then, like others in the South, cultivated the belief that they alone lived well, and that there was no such thing as good society in New York or other Northern cities; that New Yorkers and Northern people were simply a lot of tradespeople, having no antecedents, springing up like the mushroom, who did not know how to live, and who, when they gave dinners to their friends, ordered them from a neighboring restaurant.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
(_Economical_.) I. 235. INGREDIENTS.--Any remains of cold cod, 12 oysters, sufficient melted butter to moisten it; mashed potatoes enough to fill up the dish. _Mode_.--Flake the fish from the bone, and carefully take away all the skin. Lay it in a pie-dish, pour over the melted butter and oysters (or oyster sauce, if there is any left), and cover with mashed potatoes. Bake for 1/2 an hour, and send to table of a nice brown colour. _Time_.--1/2 hour. _Seasonable_ from November to March.
Sources: The passage is from Ward McAllister, Society as I Have Found It, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Beeton, The Book of Household Management of 1861, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — forest cloth, grapes stamp.