Literary Feast  ·  Read the passage. Cook the meal.
A bill of fare

The wheel of earth

by Helga Sandburg

THE WHEEL OF EARTHHELGA SANDBURG
Our binding, not the publisher's

“Standing about the table, the children were eating corn pone and bacon and beans. There was milk and a honeycomb. Melinda sucked her sticky tiny fingers and crumbled the pone. Penny was cleaning the child’s hands with a damp rag, laughing, “I got plenty of pullets now, Ellie. Luke built a hen house. I trade eggs just like you Gaddys now. But say, the store’s paying low this spring.””

From a cookbook of 1861

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

1861  ·  Beeton
FRIED RASHERS OF BACON AND POACHED EGGS

802. INGREDIENTS.--Bacon; eggs. _Mode_.--Cut the bacon into thin slices, trim away the rusty parts, and cut off the rind. Put it into a cold frying-pan, that is to say, do not place the pan on the fire before the bacon is in it. Turn it 2 or 3 times, and dish it on a very hot dish. Poach the eggs and slip them on to the bacon, without breaking the yolks, and serve quickly. _Time_.--3 or 4 minutes. _Average cost_, 10d. to 1s. per lb. for the primest parts. _Sufficient_.--Allow 6 eggs for 3 persons. _Seasonable_ at any time. _Note_.--Fried rashers of bacon, curled, serve as a pretty garnish to many dishes; and, for small families, answer very well as a substitute for boiled bacon, to serve with a small dish of poultry, &c.

Sources: The passage is from Helga Sandburg, The wheel of earth, 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, beehive stamp.

← All entries