Books and My Food: With Literary Quotations and Original Recipes for Every ..

CLEAN the fish, wash it, and dry it carefully. Salt and pepper it and roll it in flour. Butter an oyster broiler and lay the fish, without having been split, upon it. Broil over clear coals. Serve on a hot platter with butter and parsley. JULY 13TH "It was near half an hour before we could get her to finish a pint of raspberry between us." — Goldsmith ("The Good-Natured Man"). PUT fine dry raspberries into a stone jar, and the jar into a kettle of water till the juice runs ; strain and to every pint add half a pound of sugar, let it boil up once and skim it. When cold put equal quantities of juice and brandy in bottles, shake well and seal. JULY 14TH "Sending a plate of muffins across the table at poor me." — ^Thackeray. THACKERAY would not have pitied himself had the muffins been the little huckleberry ones beloved of men and children. Into a quart of flour sift two teaspoonfuls of baking powder and one of salt. Beat three eggs, yolks and whites separately, and into the yolks stir three cups of milk, a tablespoonful of melted butter and a pint of huckleberries, well dredged with an additional cup of flour. Beat for two or three minutes, add the whites of the eggs and bake in patty pans. JULY I5TH "I protest I do honor a chine of beef, I do reverence a loin of veal." — Beaumont and Fletcher ("Woman Hater"). A LOIN of veal is a dish worthy of reverence, and if properly cooked it is suited to ordinary digestions, despite its bad name. Remove the bone from the meat; season the latter highly with salt and pepper, and skewer into shape. Cover with sheets of buttered white paper tied around it. Fry a few slices of pork, a sliced onion, and three tablespoonfuls of flour until brown. Add three pints of water and a cup of stewed tomatoes. Place the veal in a roastingpan, pour the gravy around it, and cook in a slow oven three hours and a half. It will be both tender and savory. Remove the sheets of paper after the first hour. JULY i6th "'Very well,' I cried, 'that's a good girl. I find you are perfectly qualified for making converts, and so go and help your mother to make the gooseberry-pie.' " — Goldsmith ("Vicar of Wakefield")- GOOSEBERRIES make a very good tart, especially if combined with currant juice. Choose berries that are not over-ripe, put in a pre- serving kettle with half a pint of currant juice to each pound of berries. When they begin to boil, crush them with a spoon and add sugar in the proportion of three-quarters of a pound to a pound of fruit. Simmer slowly for five or six hours. Fill pie-crust shells and put a lattice of crust over the top. JULY I7TH "When he actually refused currant and raspberry tart — ^the good Hannah was alarmed.'' — Thackeray ("The Newcomes")* LINE a pie-dish with paste, wash it over with white of egg and fill with currants and raspberries, carefully picked over. Sweeten lavishly and cover with strips of the pastry crossed in a lattice pattern. Bake half an hour in a good oven. JULY i8th "The odor of that spicy cake came back upon my recollection." — Charles Lamb ("Essays of EUa"). FOR a Spice cake beat together one egg, two-thirds of a cupful each of molasses, sugar, and butter, one cupful of milk, two cupfuls and a half of flour, into which has been sifted two 12S teaspoonfuls of baking powder; one tablespoonful of mixed spice, and one tablespoonful of lemon juice and a little of the grated rind. Bake in a moderate oven. JULY 19TH "They had seldom seen him eat so heartily at any table but his own; and never before known him so little disconcerted by the melted butter's being oiled." — Jane Austen ("Northanger Abbey").