“And pictures came crowding on his imagination, each more gracious and poetical than the last. And in all these pictures he saw himself well- fed, serene, healthy, felt warm, even hot! Here, after eating a summer soup, cold as ice, he lay on his back on the burning sand close to a stream or in the garden under a lime-tree.... It is hot.... His little boy and girl are crawling about near him, digging in the sand or catching ladybirds in the grass. He dozes sweetly, thinking of nothing, and feeling all over that he need not go to the office today, tomorrow, or the day after. Or, tired of lying still, he goes to the hayfield, or to the forest for mushrooms, or watches the peasants catching fish with a net. When the sun sets he takes a towel and soap and saunters to the bathing-shed, where he undresses at his leisure, slowly rubs his bare chest with his hands, and goes into the water. And in the water, near the opaque soapy circles, little fish flit to and fro and green water- weeds nod their heads. After bathing there is tea with cream and milk rolls.... In the evening a walk or vint with the neighbours.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
½ lb. mushrooms 4 cups White Stock III 1 slice onion ¼ cup butter ¼ cup flour 1 cup cream Salt Pepper 2 tablespoons Sauterne Chop mushrooms, add to White Stock with onion, cook twenty minutes, and rub through a sieve. Reheat, bind with butter and flour cooked together, then add cream and salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving add wine.
Sources: The passage is from Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Farmer, The Boston cooking-school cook book of 1896, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — moss cloth, teapot stamp.