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A bill of fare

The King in Yellow

by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

THE KING IN YELLOWROBERT W. (ROBERT WILLIAM) CHAMBERS
Our binding, not the publisher's

““What shall it be? A roast chicken with salad? No? Possibly you prefer beef? Of course,—and I shall try an egg and some white bread. Now for the wines. Milk for you? Good. I shall take a little water, fresh from the wood,” with a motion toward the bucket in the sink.”

From a cookbook of 1877

A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.

1877  ·  Corson
257. =Milk Bread.=--Take one quart of milk, heat one-third of it, and

scald with it half a pint of flour; if the milk is skimmed, use a small piece of butter; when the batter is cool, add the rest of the milk, one cup of hop yeast, half a tablespoonful of salt, and flour enough to make it quite stiff; knead the dough until it is fine and smooth, and raise it over night. This quantity makes three small loaves. 258. =Rice Bread.=--Simmer one pound of rice in three quarts of water until the rice is soft, and the water evaporated or absorbed; let it cool until it is only luke-warm; mix into it nearly four pounds of flour, two teaspoonfuls of salt, and four tablespoonfuls of yeast; knead it until it is smooth and shining, let it rise once before the fire, make it up into loaves with the little flour reserved from the four pounds, and bake it thoroughly. 259.

Sources: The passage is from Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers, The King in Yellow, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Corson, The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical of 1877, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — plum cloth, grapes stamp.

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