““This way, Señor Capitan,” murmurs the soft-voiced flunkey, and the Englishman is shown into a private reception room, the regal luxury of which astounds him, for its tapestried walls and inlaid Flemish furniture excel those of his own Queen at Hampton Court and Westminster. Here in a few minutes is placed before him as dainty a repast as ever hungry sailor did justice to. The table is covered with snowy linen, massive silver and fairy Venetian glass, and the viands are oysters from the Schelde, cold partridge, a delicate salad of fresh lettuce with just a suspicion of garlic, and a bottle of the royal wine of Xeres itself.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Parboil one and one-half pints oysters, drain, cool, and remove tough muscles. Cut three grape fruits in halves crosswise, remove pulp, and drain. Mix oysters with pulp, and season with six tablespoons tomato catsup, four tablespoons grape fruit juice, one tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce, eight drops Tabasco sauce, and one-half teaspoon salt. Refill grape fruit skins with mixture, and garnish with curled celery.
Sources: The passage is from Archibald Clavering Gunter, The First of the English: A Novel, 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 — slate cloth, oyster stamp.