“Suddenly some of the steam begins to advance, and, peering through it, you discern Aunt Elizabeth, Ona’s stepmother—Teta Elzbieta, as they call her—bearing aloft a great platter of stewed duck. Behind her is Kotrina, making her way cautiously, staggering beneath a similar burden; and half a minute later there appears old Grandmother Majauszkiene, with a big yellow bowl of smoking potatoes, nearly as big as herself. So, bit by bit, the feast takes form—there is a ham and a dish of sauerkraut, boiled rice, macaroni, bologna sausages, great piles of penny buns, bowls of milk, and foaming pitchers of beer. There is also, not six feet from your back, the bar, where you may order all you please and do not have to pay for it. “_Eiksz! Graicziau!_” screams Marija Berczynskas, and falls to work herself—for there is more upon the stove inside that will be spoiled if it be not eaten.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
The chorissa is a peculiar kind of smoked sausage much served at Jewish tables[189] as an accompaniment to boiled poultry, &c. It seems to be in great part composed of delicate pounded meat, intermingled with suet and with a small portion of some highly-cured preparation, and with herbs or spices which impart to it an agreeable aromatic flavour. Footnote 189: It may be had at the same shops as the smoked beef, and is the same price—a shilling the pound. Drop the _chorissa_ into warm water, heat it gently, boil it for about twenty minutes, and serve it surrounded with rice prepared as for currie. It will be found very good broiled in slices after the previous boiling: it should be cold before it is again laid to the fire. In all cases it will, we think, be found both more easy of digestion and more agreeable if half-boiled at least before it is broiled, toasted, or warmed in the oven for table.
Sources: The passage is from Upton Sinclair, The Jungle, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Acton, Modern cookery for private families of 1845, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — navy cloth, boar stamp.