“O’ Sundays they stuffed their puddings with puddings, chitterlings, links, Bologna sausages, forced-meats, liverings, hogs’ haslets, young quails, and teals. You must also always add cheese for the first course, and mustard for the last.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
tablespoonfuls of salt, stir one pound of yellow Indian meal, and three quarters of a pound of grated cheese; boil it for twenty minutes, stirring it occasionally to prevent burning; then put it in a buttered baking pan, sprinkle over the top quarter of a pound of grated cheese, and brown in a quick oven. Serve hot. If any remains, slice it cold and fry it brown. 181. =Polenta.=--Boil one pound of yellow Indian meal for half an hour, in two quarts of pot-liquor, stirring it occasionally to prevent burning; then bake it for half an hour in a buttered baking dish, and serve it either hot; or, when cold, slice it and fry it in smoking hot fat. This favorite Italian dish is closely allied to the hasty-pudding of New England, whose praises have been sung by poe-tasters. 182.
Sources: The passage is from François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, tr. Motteux, Peter Anthony, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Corson, The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical of 1877, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — burgundy cloth, tankard stamp.