“No more, no more, oh! never more to me, that hour shall bring its rapture and its bliss! No more, no more, oh! never more for me, shall Flavour sit upon her thousand thrones, and, like a syren with a sunny smile, win to renewed excesses, each more sweet! My feasting days are over: me no more the charms of fish, or flesh, still less of fowl, can make the fool of that they made before. The fricandeau is like a dream of early love; the fricassee, with which I have so often flirted, is like the tattle of the last quadrille; and no longer are my dreams haunted with the dark passion of the rich ragoût. Ye soups! o’er whose creation I have watched, like mothers o’er their sleeping child! Ye sauces! to which I have even lent a name, where are ye now? Tickling, perchance, the palate of some easy friend, who quite forgets the boon companion whose presence once lent lustre even to his ruby wine and added perfume to his perfumed hock!”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Stir briskly, but by degrees, to the well-beaten yolks of two large or of three small fresh eggs, half a pint of common English white sauce; put it again into the saucepan, give it a shake over the fire, but be extremely careful not to allow it to boil, and just before it is served stir in a dessertspoonful of strained lemon-juice. When meat or chickens are fricasseed, they should be lifted from the saucepan with a slice, drained on it from the sauce, and laid into a very hot dish before the eggs are added, and when these are just set, the sauce should be poured on them.
Sources: The passage is from Benjamin Disraeli, The Young Duke, 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 — plum cloth, grapes stamp.