“‘In less than five minutes’ time, Tom was ensconced in the room opposite the bar--the very room where he had imagined the fire blazing--before a substantial, matter-of-fact, roaring fire, composed of something short of a bushel of coals, and wood enough to make half a dozen decent gooseberry bushes, piled half-way up the chimney, and roaring and crackling with a sound that of itself would have warmed the heart of any reasonable man. This was comfortable, but this was not all; for a smartly-dressed girl, with a bright eye and a neat ankle, was laying a very clean white cloth on the table; and as Tom sat with his slippered feet on the fender, and his back to the open door, he saw a charming prospect of the bar reflected in the glass over the chimney-piece, with delightful rows of green bottles and gold labels, together with jars of pickles and preserves, and cheeses and boiled hams, and rounds of beef, arranged on shelves in the most tempting and delicious array. Well, this was comfortable too; but even this was not all--for in the bar, seated at tea at the nicest possible little table, drawn close up before the brightest possible little fire, was a buxom widow of somewhere about eight-and-forty or thereabouts, with a face as comfortable as the bar, who was evidently the landlady of the house, and the supreme ruler over all these agreeable possessions. There was only one drawback to the beauty of the whole picture, and that was a tall man--a very tall man-- in a brown coat and bright basket buttons, and black whiskers and wavy black hair, who was seated at tea with the widow, and who it required no great penetration to discover was in a fair way of persuading her to be a widow no longer, but to confer upon him the privilege of sitting down in that bar, for and during the whole remainder of the term of his natural life.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Boil together, for twenty minutes, two gallons of water, three pounds of bay salt, two pounds of coarse sugar, two ounces of saltpetre, and two of black pepper, bruised, and tied in a fold of muslin; clear off the scum thoroughly, as it rises, pour the pickle into a deep earthen pan, and when it is quite cold lay in the meat, of which every part must be perfectly covered with it. A moderate-sized round of beef will be ready for table in a fortnight; it should be turned occasionally in the brine. Five pounds of common salt may be substituted for the quantity of bay salt given above; but the meat will not be so finely flavoured. Water, 2 gallons; bay-salt, 3 lbs.; saltpetre, 2 oz.; black pepper, 2 oz.; sugar, 2 lbs.: 20 minutes.
Sources: The passage is from Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Acton, Modern cookery for private families of 1845, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — burgundy cloth, tankard stamp.