“It grew dark, and they put candles on the tables--candles set in bright, new, brazen candlesticks. And soon the bell--a genuine, simon-pure bell --rang, and we were invited to “the saloon.” I had thought before that we had a tent or so too many, but now here was one, at least, provided for; it was to be used for nothing but an eating-saloon. Like the others, it was high enough for a family of giraffes to live in, and was very handsome and clean and bright-colored within. It was a gem of a place. A table for eight, and eight canvas chairs; a table-cloth and napkins whose whiteness and whose fineness laughed to scorn the things we were used to in the great excursion steamer; knives and forks, soup-plates, dinner-plates--every thing, in the handsomest kind of style. It was wonderful! And they call this camping out. Those stately fellows in baggy trowsers and turbaned fezzes brought in a dinner which consisted of roast mutton, roast chicken, roast goose, potatoes, bread, tea, pudding, apples, and delicious grapes; the viands were better cooked than any we had eaten for weeks, and the table made a finer appearance, with its large German silver candlesticks and other finery, than any table we had sat down to for a good while, and yet that polite dragoman, Abraham, came bowing in and apologizing for the whole affair, on account of the unavoidable confusion of getting under way for a very long trip, and promising to do a great deal better in future!”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Cover bottom of a shallow baking-dish with apple sauce. Cut stale bread in one-third inch slices, spread with softened butter, remove crusts, and cut in triangular-shaped pieces; then arrange closely together over apple. Sprinkle generously with sugar, to which is added a few drops vanilla. Bake in a moderate oven and serve with cream.
Sources: The passage is from Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, 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 — forest cloth, goose stamp.