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The bachelor and the chafing dish

1895

Page 8 · 2 recipe records on this page

Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
ing dish I gave him was “ Crofite clams,” then a “ Billy Deutsch ragout,” and very frequently a “ Bill Traver’s cocktail.” There was a seductive sound about the latter that caused Harry to look anxiously waiting when I first mentioned it. But it was nothing but very hot water. But the thing that really saved Harry’s life (and it helped me a good bit, too) was a brandy mixture. He liked it so well that he thought it ought to be printed in some way for the good of other poor devils in distress. So here it is : Mix a gill of brandy and a gill of cinnamon water, yolks of two eggs, half an ounce of powdered sugar, two drops of oil of cinnamonAnchovy Toast. I told Harry to take three tablespoonfuls of this every quarter of an hour if he was very exhausted. , But he took it all at once and said he needed it that way ! My friend “ Ed ” taught me the first rudiments of cookery. It all began by frying fish and making coffee after we had pitched tent in some ideal place along the lake-shore in those halcyon days when we were young, energetic, not purse-proud, and full of appreciation for all of the benefits which nature seemed to bestow purposely for our delectation. I was young in those days. When I look back on those June hours, it is like the dream of Arcadia — more healthy than any I have since had. Life was stretched out before me like that expanse of tranquil blue water. My troubles were as light as the fluff on the heather ; my youthful energy was never evanescent, and my air-castles were iridescent with hope ! Why, I had never been in love ! The Maud Mullers, the Evangelines, and the Marguerites were merely interesting human crea- tures described in rhyme. But the luminous mist on the hills in the azure haze of an Indian summer, Camping out with “ Ed .” ^7 the mellow light that crept over the pasture where cows were ruminating, the crickets’ song of silence, and the cry of the whippoorwill — all this was poetry, and appealed to me with devout thanksgiv- ing that I was permitted to be alive. For the brute my sympathies were most tender. I think I had a strange influence over all animal life, for the cows and sheep in unfamiliar places would come to me and never seem afraid. It was out of all this long- ing affection that the virtue of my first real love was subsequently born. But oh, this retrospection ! Let me get back to practical things ; let me come back to this cook-book and deal with the material ! In those days Ed seemed much older than I. Now he doesn’t. I presume it was because he was tall and manly, with a great, big chest, and a way that so dominated me that my youthful impulses oftentimes met with a frost-like observation — very much as I have seen a St. Bernard dog look at a setter pup. My first lessons in cooking principally consisted in going for the milk. That was usu- ally an errand that meant a mile over hedge and stubble and along a dusty road to some near farm- er’s house. On my return I was sure to find Ed taking a siesta while the water was boiling over the drift-wood fire. Then he would say : “ Humph, if £8 The Bachelor and the Chafing-dish.