“The aunts and uncles were kind, of course; but they had cares and interests of their own; and it needed dire extremity to move them to action. Herman’s cousins continued to go to school: the cousins had butter on their bread and cream on their porridge; but the Melvilles must have known that sinking feeling that comes to a big family at table when the eye takes in the bowl of stew or the little roast and the nine plates that wait for it, and knows instantly that no thinning of slices or spreading of gravy will make the portions large enough to satisfy a healthy appetite. The summers in the country, the long, lazy summers, were over: it was winter all the year round. Gansevoort, dogged, patient, resourceful fellow that he was, opened a hat store on Market Street, and as soon as Herman was fifteen, he got a job as clerk in the New York State Bank, of which Uncle Peter was one of the trustees: a year later, Herman shifted over to the hat store, where Gansevoort now needed an extra clerk.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
3. Mustard, butter, and vinegar. 4. Butter, vinegar, minced capers, and nutmeg. For the garnish of this fried meat, either parsley, sage, clary, onions, apples, carrots, parsnips, skirrets, spinage, artichocks, pears, quinces, slic't oranges, or lemons, or fry them in butter. Thus you may fry sweet-breads, udders, and tongues in any of the foresaid ways, with the same sauces and garnish.
Sources: The passage is from Lewis Mumford, Herman Melville, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from May, The accomplisht cook of 1660, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — plum cloth, sheaf stamp.