“Down in a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to recollect, there lived, not long ago, one of those gentlemen who usually keep a lance upon a rack, an old buckler, a lean horse, and a coursing grayhound. Soup, composed of somewhat more mutton than beef, the fragments served up cold on most nights, lentils on Fridays, collops and eggs on Saturdays, and a pigeon by way of addition on Sundays, consumed three-fourths of his income; the remainder of it supplied him with a cloak of fine cloth, velvet breeches, with slippers of the same for holidays, and a suit of the best homespun, in which he adorned himself on week-days. His family consisted of a housekeeper above forty, a niece not quite twenty, and a lad who served him both in the field and at home, who could saddle the horse or handle the pruning-hook. The age of our gentleman bordered upon fifty years: he was of a strong constitution, spare-bodied, of a meagre visage, a very early riser, and a lover of the chase. Some pretend to say that his surname was Quixada or Quesada, for on this point his historians differ; though, from very probable conjectures, we may conclude that his name was Quixana. This is, however, of little importance to our history; let it suffice that, in relating it, we do not swerve a jot from the truth.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Take some of the buttock of beef, and cut it into thin slices cross the grain of the meat, then hack them and fry them in sweet butter, and being fryed fine and brown put them in a pipkin with some strong broth, a little claret wine, and some nutmeg, stew it very tender; and half an hour before you dish it, put to it some good gravy, elder-vinegar, and a clove or two; when you serve it, put some juyce of orange, and three or four slices on it, stew down the gravy somewhat thick, and put into it when you dish it some beaten butter.
Sources: The passage is from Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from May, The accomplisht cook of 1660, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — ochre cloth, windmill stamp.