“When about 16 years of age I happened to meet with a book, written by one Tryon, recommending a vegetable diet. I determined to go into it. My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for my singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon's manner of preparing some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice, making hasty pudding, and a few others, and then proposed to my brother, that if he would give me, weekly, half the money he paid for my board, I would board myself. He instantly agreed to it, and I presently found that I could save half what he paid me. This was an additional fund for buying books. But I had another advantage in it. My brother and the rest going from the printing-house to their meals, I remained there alone, and, dispatching presently my light repast, which often was no more than a biscuit or a slice of bread, a handful of raisins or a tart from the pastry-cook's, and a glass of water, had the rest of the time till their return for study, in which I made the greater progress, from that greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which usually attend temperance in eating and drinking.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Steep half a pound of rice in milk all night, then drain it from the milk, and boil it in a quart of cream; being boild strain it and put it to half a pound of sugar, beaten nutmeg and mace steeped in rose water, and put to the foresaid materials eight yolks of eggs, and five grated manchets, put to it also half a pound of marrow, cut like dice, and salt; mingle all together, and fill your bag or napkin, and serve it with beaten butter, being boiled and stuck with almonds. If in guts, being boild, tost them before the fire in a silver dish or tosting pan.
Sources: The passage is from Charles Madison Curry, Children's Literature: A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-, 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 — burgundy cloth, pudding stamp.