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Don Juan

by George Gordon Byron Byron

DON JUANGEORGE GORDON BYRON BYRON
Our binding, not the publisher's

“But in the long-boat they contrived to stow Some pounds of bread, though injured by the wet; Water, a twenty-gallon cask or so; Six flasks of wine; and they contrived to get A portion of their beef up from below, And with a piece of pork, moreover, met, But scarce enough to serve them for a luncheon— Then there was rum, eight gallons in a puncheon.”

From a cookbook of 1806

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

1806  ·  Rundell
Beef or Pork, to be salted for eating immediately

The piece should not weigh more than five or six pounds. Salt it very thoroughly just before you put it in the pot. Take a coarse cloth, flour it well, put the meat in and fold it up close. Put it into a pot of boiling water, and boil it as long as you would any salt beef of the same size, and it will be as salt as if done four or five days.

Sources: The passage is from George Gordon Byron Byron, Don Juan, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Rundell, New system of domestic cookery, formed upon principles of of 1806, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — ochre cloth, grapes stamp.

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