“After having very much enjoyed a solid Melton Mowbray pie, a sausage in puff-pastry, a sponge-cake, a lemon cheesecake, and two crisp brandy snaps, and slowly sipped the coffee, Charlotte felt that this was the only life worth living, and formally vowed to dedicate herself for ever to the Secret Service of Humanity--Beth's name for these enterprises. She kept a careful eye on the road below all this time, and there ran through her head the while fragments of a ballad Beth had written, which added very much to the charm of the occasion.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
1 tablespoonful of corn starch. 2 tablespoonfuls powdered sugar. 1/2 saltspoonful of salt. 1 lemon. 1/2 pint of water. 1/2 pint of granulated sugar. 2 eggs. 1/4 the rule for delicate paste. Mix the corn starch with one third of the water, and put the remainder on to boil. Stir the sugar, salt, and corn starch into the boiling water, and cook for one minute, stirring all the time. Take from the fire, and add the juice and the grated yellow rind of the lemon. When cool, add the yolks of the eggs, well beaten. Line a deep plate with the paste and fill with the mixture. Bake in a moderate oven for half an hour. Take from the oven and cool for fifteen minutes. Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff dry froth, and then beat the powdered sugar into them. Spread this meringue over the pie, and place in the oven. Cook for twelve minutes with the oven door open; then put away to get icy cold.
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 Parloa, Miss Parloa's Young Housekeeper of 1893, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — navy cloth, teapot stamp.