“Soon after we had taken our meal, the sun began to sink into the west. Our little flock of fowls assembled round us, pecking here and there what morsels of our biscuit had fallen on the ground.--Just at this moment my wife produced the bag she had so mysteriously huddled into the tub. Its mouth was now opened; it contained the various sorts of grain for feeding poultry--barley, peas, oats, etc., and also different kinds of seeds and roots of vegetables for the table. In the fulness of her kind heart she scattered several handfuls at once upon the ground, which the fowls began eagerly to seize. Our pigeons sought a roosting-place among the rocks; the hens, with the two cocks at their head, ranged themselves in a line along the ridge of the tent; and the geese and ducks betook themselves in a body, cackling and quacking as they proceeded, to a marshy bit of ground near the sea, where some thick bushes afforded them shelter.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
(_French Receipt._) Take closely off the flesh of the breast and wing together, on either side of the bone, and when the _large fillets_, as they are called, are thus raised from three birds, which will give but six cutlets, take the strips of flesh that lie under the wings, and that of the merrythoughts, and flatten two or three of these together, that there may be nine cutlets at least, of equal size. When all are ready, fry to a pale brown as many diamond-shaped sippets of bread as there are fillets of fowl, and let them be quite as large; place these before the fire to dry, and wipe out the pan. Dip the cutlets into some yolks of eggs, mixed with a little clarified butter, and strew them in every part with the finest bread-crumbs, moderately seasoned with salt, cayenne, and pounded mace.
Sources: The passage is from Johann David Wyss, The Swiss family Robinson, 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, sheaf stamp.