“"For luncheon," he said, "the beef can remain cold on the sideboard, also the tongue. The chicken you will grill for one hot dish, and do not forget to garnish with rolls of bacon. The pudding you can cut into slices, fry, and sprinkle with a little sifted sugar. Mind, I say a little; for, as the pudding is sweet enough already, the sugar is merely an ornament to make it agreeable to the eye. For the rest, as usual."”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
prepared by the butcher for roasting, all the bones being taken out if it is desirable to carve a clean slice off the top; secure it in place with stout twine; do not use skewers, as the unnecessary holes they make permit the meat-juices to escape; lay it in the dripping pan on a bed of the following vegetables, cut in small pieces; one small onion, half a carrot, half a turnip, three sprigs of parsley, one sprig of thyme, and three bay leaves; _do not put any water in the dripping pan_; its temperature can not rise to a degree equal in heat to that of the fat outside of the beef, and can not assist in its cooking, but serves only to lower the temperature of the meat, where it touches it, and consequently to soften the surface and extract the juices; _do not season it until the surface is partly carbonized by the heat_, as salt applied to the cut fibre draws out their juices.
Sources: The passage is from Sarah Grand, The Beth Book: Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Corson, The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical of 1877, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — navy cloth, pudding stamp.