“My visit to Windsor Castle, dining at the village inn with Her Majesty’s _chef_, and the keeper of her jewel room, was interesting. I saw the old, tall doorkeeper, with his long staff, sitting at the door of the servants’ hall. I saw Her Majesty’s kitchen and the roasts for all living in the castle,--at least twenty separate pieces turning on a spit. Then I examined a large, hot, steel table on which any cooked article being placed would stay hot as long as it remained there. The _chef_ told me a German prince, when informed of its price, said it would take all his yearly revenue to pay for it. Then I saw Her Majesty’s jewel room; the walls wainscoted, as it were, with gold plates; the large gold bowl, which looks like a small bath-tub, from which the Prince of Wales was baptized, stood in the dining-room. I saw Prince Albert and the Prince of Wales that morning shooting pheasants, alongside of the Windsor Long Walk, and stood within a few yards of them. I feel sure we ate, that day, at the inn, the pheasants that had been shot by Prince Albert. I visited Her Majesty’s model farm, and found that all the flax-seed cake for the cattle was imported from America. The simple cognomen, American Landed Proprietor, was “open sesame” to me everywhere, accompanied as I was by one of her Majesty’s pages. In London, of an evening, we went to Evans’s, a sort of public hall where one took beer and listened to comic songs. Jubber, a wine merchant, kept the hotel where I lodged. As a celebrated London physician was dining with me, I asked for the palest and most delicate sherry to be found in London, regardless of cost, to be served that day, at my dinner. He looked at me and smiled, seeing I was quite a young man, saying, “If I give it to you, you will not drink it.” “Send me the sherry,” I replied, “and you will see.” The result was I got a delicious Montilla sherry and sent a butt of it to America. This was my first acquaintance with Montilla sherry, the most delicate wine that I know of, to be served from soup to dessert.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
179. INGREDIENTS.--2 pheasants, 1/4 lb. of butter, 2 slices of ham, 2 large onions sliced, 1/2 head of celery, the crumb of two French rolls, the yolks of 2 eggs boiled hard, salt and cayenne to taste, a little pounded mace, if liked; 3 quarts of stock No. 105. _Mode_.--Cut up the pheasants, flour and braise them in the butter and ham till they are of a nice brown, but not burnt. Put them in a stewpan, with the onions, celery, and seasoning, and simmer for 2 hours. Strain the soup; pound the breasts with the crumb of the roll previously soaked, and the yolks of the eggs; put it to the soup, give one boil, and serve. _Time_.--2-1/2 hours. _Average cost_, 2s. 10d. per quart, or, if made with fragments of gold game, 1s. _Seasonable_ from October to February. _Sufficient_ for 10 persons. _Note_.--Fragments, pieces and bones of cold game, may be used to great advantage in this soup, and then 1 pheasant will suffice.
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 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 — ochre cloth, grapes stamp.