“Ellen took the pail, crossing the lane to the hog lot. “Soooooeee,” she shouted, “pig-pig-pig-pig!” Grunting and sniffing, the two laden red beasts approached, eying her under horny lids. Shoulders pushing, they vied for the whey, potato peelings, crumbs of dough and flour. Ellen watched them root around for scraps and, still squealing and shoving, move off. She rinsed the bucket, filling it afresh to carry with her. The drowsy odor of green grape blossoms drifted languid from the vines. In the garden she stooped and moved, her toes grasping the earth, her nimble fingers pulling among sprouts, making small piles of weedlings. She transplanted sorrel and mustard, poured water on them, made beds of onion sets, black radishes, corn and squash to stagger the summer yield for the table.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Put the shoulder of mutton to boil in your two-gallon pot, with a handful of salt and plenty of water, allow it to boil gently for about two hours, and when done, and placed on its dish, smother it over with the following sauce:--Chop six or eight large onions, and boil them with a pint of water for twenty minutes, by which time the water must be reduced to half a pint; then add two ounces of butter, a pint of milk, four ounces of flour, pepper, and salt, and stir the sauce whilst boiling for ten minutes. A shoulder of mutton for boiling is all the better for its being salted for two or three days previous to its being cooked.
Sources: The passage is from Helga Sandburg, The wheel of earth, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Francatelli, A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes of 1852, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — forest cloth, grapes stamp.