“We then crossed to a place where the road turns towards Mortlake. Here there stood a white house within a walled garden, and in the pantry of this domicile we found a store of food—two loaves of bread in a pan, an uncooked steak, and the half of a ham. I give this catalogue so precisely because, as it happened, we were destined to subsist upon this store for the next fortnight. Bottled beer stood under a shelf, and there were two bags of haricot beans and some limp lettuces. This pantry opened into a kind of wash-up kitchen, and in this was firewood; there was also a cupboard, in which we found nearly a dozen of burgundy, tinned soups and salmon, and two tins of biscuits.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
(_Economical_.) 117. INGREDIENTS.--1 lb. of bread crusts, 2 oz. butter, 1 quart of common stock. _Mode_.--Boil the bread crusts in the stock with the butter; beat the whole with a spoon, and keep it boiling till the bread and stock are well mixed. Season with a little salt. _Time_.--Half an hour. _Average cost_ per quart, 4d. _Seasonable_ at any time. _Sufficient_ for 4 persons. _Note_.--This is a cheap recipe, and will be found useful where extreme economy is an object. [Illustration: QUERN, or GRINDING-MILL.] BREAD.--The origin of bread is involved in the obscurity of distant ages. The Greeks attributed its invention to Pan; but before they, themselves, had an existence, it was, no doubt, in use among the primitive nations of mankind. The Chaldeans and the Egyptians were acquainted with it, and Sarah, the companion of Abraham, mixed flour and water together, kneaded it, and covered it with ashes on the hearth.
Sources: The passage is from H. G. (Herbert George) Wells, The war of the worlds, 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 — teal cloth, grapes stamp.