“The pavement of Snow Hill had been baking and frying all day in the heat, and the twain Saracens’ heads guarding the entrance to the hostelry of whose name and sign they are the duplicate presentments, looked--or seemed, in the eyes of jaded and footsore passers-by, to look--more vicious than usual, after blistering and scorching in the sun, when, in one of the inn’s smallest sitting-rooms, through whose open window there rose, in a palpable steam, wholesome exhalations from reeking coach-horses, the usual furniture of a tea-table was displayed in neat and inviting order, flanked by large joints of roast and boiled, a tongue, a pigeon pie, a cold fowl, a tankard of ale, and other little matters of the like kind, which, in degenerate towns and cities, are generally understood to belong more particularly to solid lunches, stage-coach dinners, or unusually substantial breakfasts.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Boiled Turkey and Vase of Boiled Ham. Celery Sauce. Flowers. Tongue, garnished. Saddle of Mutton. _Third Course._ Charlotte Pheasants, Apricot Jam à la Parisienne. removed by Tartlets. Plum-pudding. Jelly. Cream. Vase of Cream. Flowers. Jelly. Snipes, removed by Pommes à la Condé.
Sources: The passage is from Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, 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.