“Our next great day-time frolic was at Bristol Ferry. There we had a large country hotel which we took possession of. We got the best dinner giver then in Newport to lend us his _chef_, and I took my own colored cook, a native of Baltimore, who had, at the Maryland Ducking Club, gained a reputation for cooking game, ducks, etc. We determined, on this occasion, to have a trial of artistic skill between a creole woman cook, the best of her class, and the best _chef_ we had in this country. We were to have sixty at dinner; dishes confined to Spanish mackerel, soft-shell crabs, woodcock, and chicken partridges. It is needless to say, the Frenchman came off victorious, though my creole cook contended that the French _chef_ would not eat his own cooked dishes, but devoured her soft-shell crabs.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
5. A Pigeon Pie. 6. A Dish of Plovers or Snites. 7. A Dish of fat Chickens rosted. 8. A Warden or Quince Pie. 9. A Sowced Pig. 10. A Dish of Tarts of several sorts. 11. A Dish of Lobsters, or Sturgeon. 12. A Dish of pickled Oysters. * * * * * _A Bill of Fare for Fish Days and Fasting Days in Ember week, or in Lent._
Sources: The passage is from Ward McAllister, Society as I Have Found It, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Woolley, The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet of 1670, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — ochre cloth, amphora stamp.