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Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky

by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

DANIEL BOONE: THE PIONEER JOHN S. C. (JOHN STEVENS CABOT) ABBOTT
Our binding, not the publisher's

“"Soon after my arrival supper was ready. It consisted of fowls, bacon, hoe-cake and buckwheat cakes. Our beverage was milk and coffee, sweetened with maple sugar. Soon as it grew dark my hostess took down a small candle mould for three candles, hanging from the wall on a frame-work just in front of the fire-place, in company with a rifle, long strings of dried pumpkins and other articles of household property. On retiring I was conducted to the room overhead, to which I ascended by stairs out of doors. My bed-fellow was the county sheriff, a young man of about my own age. And as we lay together a fine field was had for astronomical observations through the chinks of the logs.”

From a cookbook of 1896

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

1896  ·  Farmer
Coffee Cakes (Brioche)

1 cup scalded milk ¼ cup yolks of eggs ½ cup whole eggs ⅔ cup butter ½ cup sugar 2 yeast cakes ½ teaspoon extract lemon or 2 pounded cardamon seeds 4⅔ cups flour _French Confectioner_ Cool milk; when lukewarm, add yeast cakes, and when they are dissolved add remaining ingredients, and beat thoroughly with hand ten minutes; let rise six hours. Keep in ice-box over night; in morning turn on floured board, roll in long rectangular piece one-fourth inch thick; spread with softened butter, fold from sides toward centre to make three layers. Cut off pieces three-fourths inch wide; cover and let rise. Take each piece separately in hands and twist from ends in opposite directions, coil and bring ends together at top of cake. Let rise in pans and bake twenty minutes in a moderate oven; cool and brush over with confectioners’ sugar, mois

Sources: The passage is from John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott, Daniel Boone: The Pioneer of Kentucky, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Farmer, The Boston cooking-school cook book of 1896, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — moss cloth, boar stamp.

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