“He made up his mind to eat less, but unfortunately it was not possible to carry out this brilliant idea when he wakened each morning with an amazing appetite and the table near his sofa was set with a breakfast of home-made bread and fresh butter, snow-white eggs, raspberry jam and clotted cream. Mary always breakfasted with him and when they found themselves at the table—particularly if there were delicate slices of sizzling ham sending forth tempting odors from under a hot silver cover—they would look into each other’s eyes in desperation.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
1588. INGREDIENTS.--To every lb. of raspberries allow 1 lb. of sugar, 1/4 pint of red-currant juice. _Mode_.--Let the fruit for this preserve be gathered in fine weather, and used as soon after it is picked as possible. Take off the stalks, put the raspberries into a preserving-pan, break them well with a wooden spoon, and let them boil for 1/4 hour, keeping them well stirred. Then add the currant-juice and sugar, and boil again for 1/2 hour. Skim the jam well after the sugar is added, or the preserve will not be clear. The addition of the currant juice is a very great improvement to this preserve, as it gives it a piquant taste, which the flavour of the raspberries seems to require. _Time_.--1/4 hour to simmer the fruit without the sugar; 1/4 hour after it is added. _Average cost_, from 6d. to 8d. per lb. pot. _Sufficient_.--Allow about 1 pint of fruit to fill a 1-lb. pot. _Seasonable_ in July and August.
Sources: The passage is from Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden, 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 — plum cloth, boar stamp.