“He lived in two rooms in an obscure street off the Strand, and at the time when we make his acquaintance he has just finished a meal that stamps the lower middle classes and the impecunious--to wit, high tea. For the benefit of gastronomers it may be stated that it included herrings, a loaf of bread, some butter of repellent aspect, and strawberry jam. Lionel has lighted his pipe and seated himself at the window to enjoy as much of a June evening as can be enjoyable in a London back street. He has not emitted three puffs of smoke before a tap at the door heralds the entrance of his landlady.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
1594. INGREDIENTS.--To every lb. of fruit allow 1/2 pint of red-currant juice, 1-1/4 lb. of loaf sugar. _Mode_.--Strip the currants from the stalks, put them into a jar; place this jar in a saucepan of boiling water, and simmer until the juice is well drawn from the fruit; strain the currants, measure the juice, put it into a preserving-pan, and add the sugar. Select well-ripened but sound strawberries; pick them from the stalks, and when the sugar is dissolved in the currant juice, put in the fruit. Simmer the whole over a moderate fire, from 1/2 to 3/4 hour, carefully removing the scum as it rises. Stir the jam only enough to prevent it from burning at the bottom of the pan, as the fruit should be preserved as whole as possible. Put the jam into jars, and when cold, cover down. _Time_.--1/2 to 3/4 hour, reckoning from the time the jam simmers all over. _Average cost_, from 7d. to 8d. per lb. pot.
Sources: The passage is from Richard Bird, The Gay Adventure: A Romance, 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 — moss cloth, teapot stamp.