““My Lord,” replied the steward, “I will get them to prepare you eggs in a hundred thousand different ways, and you can have apples and pears. Our host has also some rich cheese. We will do our best; have patience, a supper is soon over, and you shall fare better to-morrow, God willing. We shall be in a town which is much better provided with fish than this, and on Sunday you cannot fail to dine well, for here are two partridges which are plump and succulent.””
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Put them in a cool oven six or seven times, and flatten them by degrees, and gently, when soft enough to bear it. If the oven be too hot they will waste; and at first it should be very cool. The Biffin, the Minshul crab, or any tart apples, are the sort for drying.
Sources: The passage is from Unknown, One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories: Right Pleasaunte To Relate, tr. Douglas, Robert B. (Robert Bruce), free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Rundell, New system of domestic cookery, formed upon principles of of 1806, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — oxblood cloth, cheese stamp.