“"Oh, if you choose to play the wit!" said he,--and began to rail at large upon his destiny, the weather, the cold, the danger and the expense of the escape, and, above all, the cooking of the accursed English. It seemed to annoy him particularly that I should have joined their party. "If you knew what you were doing, thirty thousand millions of pigs! you would keep yourself to yourself! The horses can't drag the cart; the roads are all ruts and swamps. No longer ago than last night the Colonel and I had to march half the way--thunder of God!--half the way to the knees in mud--and I with this infernal cold--and the danger of detection! Happily we met no one: a desert--a real desert--like the whole abominable country! Nothing to eat--no, sir, there is nothing to eat but raw cow and greens boiled in water--nor to drink but Worcestershire sauce! Now I, with my catarrh, I have no appetite; is it not so? Well, if I were in France, I should have a good soup with a crust in it, an omelette, a fowl in rice, a partridge in cabbages--things to tempt me, thunder of God! But here--day of God!--what a country! And cold, too! They talk about Russia--this is all the cold I want! And the people--look at them! What a race! Never any handsome men; never any fine officers!"--and he looked down complacently for a moment at his waist--"And the women--what faggots! No, that is one point clear, I cannot stomach the English!"”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
1494. Take, for 6 persons, the roes of 2 carp; [Footnote: An American writer says he has followed this recipe, substituting pike, shad, &c., in the place of carp, and can recommend all these also, with a quiet conscience. Any fish, indeed, may be used with success.] bleach them, by putting them, for 5 minutes, in boiling water slightly salted. Take a piece of fresh tunny about the size of a hen's egg, to which add a small shalot already chopped; hash up together the roe and the tunny, so as to mix them well, and throw the whole into a saucepan, with a sufficient quantity of very good butter: whip it up until the butter is melted! This constitutes the specialty of the omelet. Take a second piece of butter, _à discrétion_, mix it with parsley and herbs, place it in a long-shaped dish destined to receive the omelet; squeeze the juice of a lemon over it, and place it on hot embers.
Sources: The passage is from Robert Louis Stevenson, The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 20, 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 — slate cloth, amphora stamp.