“While the New York June grew hotter and hotter and stickier and stickier, while the crowds, crammed together in the subway in a jam as unlovely as a pile of tomato-cans on a public dump-heap, grew pale in the damp heat, Carl labored in his office, and almost every evening called on Ruth, who was waiting for the first of July, when she was to go to Cousin Patton Kerr's, in the Berkshires. Carl tried to bring her coolness. He ate only poached eggs on toast or soup and salad for dinner, that he might not be torpid. He gave her moss-roses with drops of water like dew on the stems. They sat out on the box-stoop--the unfriendly New York street adopting for a time the frank neighborliness of a village--and exclaimed over every breeze. They talked about the charm of forty degrees below zero. That is, sometimes. Their favorite topic was themselves.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
1291. INGREDIENTS.--3/4 lb of suet-crust No. 1215, 3/4 lb. of any kind of jam. _Mode_.--Make a nice light suet-crust by recipe No. 1215, and roll it out to the thickness of about 1/2 inch. Spread the jam equally over it, leaving a small margin of paste without any, where the pudding joins. Roll it up, fasten the ends securely, and tie it in a floured cloth; put the pudding into boiling water, and boil for 2 hours. Mincemeat or marmalade may be substituted for the jam, and makes excellent puddings. _Time_.--2 hours. _Average cost_, 9d. _Sufficient_ for 5 or 6 persons. _Seasonable_.--Suitable for winter puddings, when fresh fruit is not obtainable.
Sources: The passage is from Sinclair Lewis, The Trail of the Hawk: A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life, 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 — forest cloth, amphora stamp.