“As, for example, beans, peas, phasels, or long-peason, ciches, onions, nuts, oysters, herrings, salt-meats, garum (a kind of anchovy), and salads wholly made up of venereous herbs and fruits, as--”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
1121. INGREDIENTS.--1 quart of white haricot beans, 4 middling-sized onions, 1/4 pint of good brown gravy, pepper and salt to taste, a little flour. _Mode_.--Peel and mince the onions not too finely, and fry them in butter of a light brown colour; dredge over them a little flour, and add the gravy and a seasoning of pepper and salt. Have ready a pint of haricot beans well boiled and drained; put them with the onions and gravy, mix all well together, and serve very hot. _Time_.--From 2 to 2-1/2 hours to boil the beans; 5 minutes to fry the onions. _Average cost_, 4d. per quart. _Sufficient_ for 4 or 5 persons. _Seasonable_ in winter.
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 Beeton, The Book of Household Management of 1861, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — burgundy cloth, tankard stamp.