“The count walked up and down the hall in his dressing gown, giving orders to the club steward and to the famous Feoktíst, the club’s head cook, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, veal, and fish for this dinner. The count had been a member and on the committee of the club from the day it was founded. To him the club entrusted the arrangement of the festival in honor of Bagratión, for few men knew so well how to arrange a feast on an open-handed, hospitable scale, and still fewer men would be so well able and willing to make up out of their own resources what might be needed for the success of the fete. The club cook and the steward listened to the count’s orders with pleased faces, for they knew that under no other management could they so easily extract a good profit for themselves from a dinner costing several thousand rubles.”
A cook of roughly the same moment, setting down the same dish.
Season one and one-half cups cold cooked flaked halibut, haddock, or cod, with salt, cayenne, and lemon juice. Cover, and let stand one hour. To Cream Dressing II (see p. 324) add one-third tablespoon granulated gelatine soaked in one and one-half tablespoons cold water. As soon as dressing begins to thicken, add one-half cup heavy cream beaten until stiff, then fold in the fish. Turn into individual moulds, chill, remove from moulds, arrange on lettuce leaves, garnish each with a thin slice of cucumber, and serve with =Cucumber Sauce.= Pare two cucumbers, chop, drain off most of liquor, and season with salt, pepper, and vinegar.
Sources: The passage is from Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, tr. Maude, Aylmer, free to read in full at Project Gutenberg. The recipe is from Farmer, The Boston cooking-school cook book of 1896, also free in full. Both are in the public domain in the United States. The binding above is ours — slate cloth, amphora stamp.