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

Ulysses

by James Joyce

ULYSSESJAMES JOYCE
Our binding, not the publisher's

“After all there’s a lot in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from the earth garlic of course it stinks after Italian organgrinders crisp of onions mushrooms truffles. Pain to the animal too. Pluck and draw fowl. Wretched brutes there at the cattlemarket waiting for the poleaxe to split their skulls open. Moo. Poor trembling calves. Meh. Staggering bob. Bubble and squeak. Butchers’ buckets wobbly lights. Give us that brisket off the hook. Plup. Rawhead and bloody bones. Flayed glasseyed sheep hung from their haunches, sheepsnouts bloodypapered snivelling nosejam on sawdust. Top and lashers going out. Don’t maul them pieces, young one.”

From a cookbook of 1861

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

1861  ·  Beeton
BROILED FOWL AND MUSHROOM SAUCE

939. INGREDIENTS.--A large fowl, seasoning, to taste, of pepper and salt, 2 handfuls of button mushrooms, 1 slice of lean ham, 3/4 pint of thickened gravy, 1 teaspoonful of lemon-juice, 1/2 teaspoonful of pounded sugar. _Mode_.--Cut the fowl into quarters, roast it until three-parts done, and keep it well basted whilst at the fire. Take the fowl up, broil it for a few minutes over a clear fire, and season it with pepper and salt. Have ready some mushroom sauce made in the following manner. Put the mushrooms into a stewpan with a small piece of butter, the ham, a seasoning of pepper and salt, and the gravy; simmer these gently for 1/2 hour, add the lemon-juice and sugar, dish the fowl, and pour the sauce round them. _Time_.--To roast the fowl, 35 minutes; to broil it, 10 to 15 minutes. _Average cost_, in full season, 2s. 6d. _Sufficient_ for 4 or 5 persons. _Seasonable_.--In full season from May to January.

Sources: The passage is from James Joyce, Ulysses, 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 — navy cloth, teapot stamp.

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