2 meals in this book
“I hardly ever choose my dish at table, but take the next at hand, and unwillingly change it for another. A confusion of meats and a clatter of dishes displease me as much as any other confusion: I am easily satisfied with few dishes: and am an enemy to the opinion of Favorinus, that in a feast they should snatch from you the meat you like, and set a plate of another sort before you; and that ‘tis a pitiful supper, if you do not sate your guests with the rumps of various fowls, the beccafico only deserving to be all eaten. I usually eat salt meats, yet I prefer bread that has no salt in it; and my baker never sends up other to my table, contrary to the custom of the country. In my infancy, what they had most to correct in me was the refusal of things that children commonly best love, as sugar, sweetmeats, and march-panes. My tutor contended with this aversion to delicate things, as a kind of over-nicety; and indeed ‘tis nothing else but a difficulty of taste, in anything it applies itself to. Whoever cures a child of an obstinate liking for brown bread, bacon, or garlic, cures him also of pampering his palate. There are some who affect temperance and plainness by wishing for beef and ham amongst the partridges; ‘tis all very fine; this is the delicacy of the delicate; ‘tis the taste of an effeminate fortune that disrelishes ordinary and accustomed things.”
1759. INGREDIENTS.--1 lb. of treacle, 1/4 lb. of clarified butter, 1 lb. of coarse brown sugar, 2 oz. of ground ginger, 1 oz. of candied orange-peel, 1 oz. of candied angelica, 1/2 oz. of candied lemon-peel, 1/2 oz. of coriander seeds, 1/2 oz. of caraway seeds, 1 egg; flour. _Mode_.--Put the treacle into a basin, and pour over it the butter, melted so as not to oil, the sugar, and ginger. Stir these ingredients well together, and whilst mixing, add the candied peel, which should be cut into very small pieces, but not bruised, and the caraway and coriander seeds, which should be pounded. Having mixed all thoroughly together, break in an egg, and work the whole up with as much fine flour as may be necessary to form a paste. Make this into nuts of any size, put them on a tin plate, and bake in a slow oven from 1/4 to 1/2 hour. _Time_.--1/4 to 1/2 hour. _Average cost_, from 1s. to 1s. 4d. per lb. _Seasonable_ at any time.
Recipe from The Book of Household Management of 1861.
““Upon his arrival at Botzen, Montaigne wrote to Francois Hottmann, to say that he had been so pleased with his visit to Germany that he quitted it with great regret, although it was to go into Italy. He then passed through Brunsol, Trent, where he put up at the Rose; thence going to Rovera; and here he first lamented the scarcity of crawfish, but made up for the loss by partaking of truffles cooked in oil and vinegar; oranges, citrons, and olives, in all of which he delighted.””
[1] Sentence in Tor.; wanting in List. _et al._ [2] List. No mention of beets is made in this formula; therefore, it may belong to the foregoing leek recipes. V. This is not so. Here the noun is made subject to the first verb, as is practiced frequently. Moreover, the mode of preparation fits beets nicely, except for the flour to which we object in note 3, below. To cook beets with leeks, spices and wine and serve them (cold) with oil and vinegar is indeed a method that cannot be improved upon. [3] Tac., Tor., List., G.-V. _uvam passam_, _Farinam_--raisins and flour--for which there is no reason. Sch. _varianam_--raisin wine of the Varianian variety; Bas. _Phariam_. V. inclined to agree with Sch. and Bas.
Recipe from Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome.
Sources: Every passage above is quoted verbatim from Essays of Michel de Montaigne, tr. Cotton, Charles, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipes come from cookbooks of the period, also free in full. All are in the public domain in the United States. The binding is ours — teal cloth, boar stamp.