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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

by James Joyce

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AJAMES JOYCE
Our binding, not the publisher's

“But his long spell of leisure and liberty was drawing to its end. One evening his father came home full of news which kept his tongue busy all through dinner. Stephen had been awaiting his father’s return for there had been mutton hash that day and he knew that his father would make him dip his bread in the gravy. But he did not relish the hash for the mention of Clongowes had coated his palate with a scum of disgust.”

From a cookbook of 1660

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

1660  ·  May
To hash a Shoulder of Mutton

Take a Shoulder of Mutton, roast it, and save the gravy, slice one half, and mince the other, and put it into a pipkin with the shoulder blade, put to it some strong broth of good mutton or beef-gravy, large mace, some pepper, salt, and a big onion or two, a faggot of sweet herbs, and a pint of white wine; stew them well together close covered, and being tender stewed, put away the fat, and put some oyster-liquor to the meat, and give it a warm: Then have three pints of great oysters parboil'd in their own liquor, and bearded; stew them in a pipkin with large mace, two great whole onions, a little salt, vinegar, butter, some white-wine, pepper, and stript tyme; the materials being well stewed down, dish up the shoulder of mutton on a fine clean dish, and pour on the materials or hashed mutton, then the stewed oysters over all; with slic't lemon and fine carved sippets round the dish.

Sources: The passage is from James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 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 — oxblood cloth, sheaf stamp.

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