Literary Feast  ·  Read the passage. Cook the meal.
A bill of fare

The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 20

by Robert Louis Stevenson

THE WORKS OF ROBERT LOUIS ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
Our binding, not the publisher's

“We spread the napkin on a big stone of the quarry, and set out the feast: scones, oatcake, hard-boiled eggs, a bottle of milk, and a small flask of usquebaugh. Our hands met as we prepared the table. This was our first housekeeping; the first breakfast of our honeymoon I called it, rallying her. "Starving I may be; but starve I will in sight of food, unless you share it," and, "It escapes me for the moment, madam, if you take sugar." We leaned to each other across the rock, and our faces touched. Her cold cheek with the rain upon it, and one small damp curl--for many days I had to feed upon the memory of that kiss, and I feed upon it yet.”

From a cookbook of 1896

A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.

1896  ·  Farmer
Cream Scones

2 cups flour 4 teaspoons baking power 2 teaspoons sugar ½ teaspoon salt 4 tablespoons butter 2 eggs ⅓ cup cream Mix and sift together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Rub in butter with tips of fingers; add eggs well beaten, and cream. Toss on a floured board, pat, and roll to three-fourths inch in thickness. Cut in squares, brush with white of egg, sprinkle with sugar, and bake in a hot oven fifteen minutes.

Sources: The passage is from Robert Louis Stevenson, The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 20, 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 — burgundy cloth, amphora stamp.

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