“There was never anything but black bread for breakfast and supper, save only one pint of gruel with the bread for breakfast. For dinner every day we got a pound of boiled potatoes and five ounces of black bread; three days a week five ounces of meat--that is, fifteen ounces a week for a man toiling hard in the keen sea air. We were always on the verge of starvation; our sufferings were terrible. In our hunger there was no vile refuse we would not devour greedily if opportunity occurred.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
1856. INGREDIENTS.--2 oz. of Scotch or pearl barley, 1/2 pint of port wine, the rind of 1 lemon, 1 quart and 1/2 pint of water, sugar to taste. _Mode_.--After well washing the barley, boil it in 1/2 pint of water for 1/4 hour; then pour this water away; put to the barley the quart of fresh boiling water, and let it boil until the liquid is reduced to half; then strain it off. Add the wine, sugar, and lemon-peel; simmer for 5 minutes, and put it away in a clean jug. It can be warmed from time to time, as required. _Time_.--To be boiled until reduced to half. _Average cost_, 1s. 6d. _Sufficient_ with the wine to make 1-1/2 pint of gruel.
Sources: The passage is from Austin Bidwell, Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in, 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 — oxblood cloth, sheaf stamp.