“The porter had scarcely heard her words when he took up his crate, and he followed her until she stopped at the door of a house, and knocked; whereupon there came down to her a Christian, and she gave him a piece of gold, and received for it a quantity of olives, and two large vessels of wine,[III_4] which she placed in the crate, saying to the porter, Take it up, and follow me. The porter exclaimed, This is, indeed, a fortunate day!--and he took up the crate, and followed her. She next stopped at the shop of a fruiterer, and bought of him Syrian apples, and 'Othmánee quinces,[III_5] and peaches of 'Omán, and jasmine of Aleppo, and water-lilies of Damascus, and cucumbers of the Nile, and Egyptian limes, and Sulṭánee citrons, and sweet-scented myrtle, and sprigs of the ḥennà-tree, and chamomile, and anemones, and violets, and pomegranate flowers, and eglantine: all these she put into the porter's crate, and said to him, Take it up. So he took it up, and followed her until she stopped at the shop of a butcher, to whom she said, Cut off ten pounds of meat;--and he cut it off for her, and she wrapped it in a leaf of a banana-tree, and put it in the crate, and said again, Take it up, O porter:--and he did so, and followed her. She next stopped at the shop of a seller of dry fruits, and took some of every kind of these, and desired the porter to take up his burden. Having obeyed, he followed her until she stopped at the shop of a confectioner, where she bought a dish, and filled it with sweets of every kind that he had,[III_6] which she put into the crate; whereupon the porter ventured to say, If thou hadst informed me beforehand, I had brought with me a mule to carry all these things. The lady smiled at his remark, and next stopped at the shop of a perfumer, of whom she bought ten kinds of scented waters; rose-water, and orange-flower-water, and willow-flower-water,[III_7] &c.; together with some sugar, and a sprinkling-bottle[III_8] of rose-water infused with musk, and some frankincense, and aloes-wood, and ambergris, and musk, and wax candles; and, placing all these in the crate, she said, Take up thy crate, and follow me. He, therefore, took it up, and followed her until she came to a handsome house, before which was a spacious court. It was a lofty structure, with a door of two leaves, composed of ebony, overlaid with plates of red gold.[III_9]”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Wipe, quarter, core, and pare Porter apples, then weigh. Make a syrup by boiling for ten minutes one-third their weight in sugar with water, allowing two and one-half cups to each pound of sugar. Cook apples in syrup until soft, doing a few at a time. Fill jars, following Directions for Canning.
Sources: The passage is from Unknown, The Thousand and One Nights, Vol. I.: Commonly Called the Arabian Nigh, tr. Lane, Edward William, 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 — teal cloth, lamp stamp.