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

cup of boiling water. Season with a saltspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper, a few drops of onion-juice, a pinch of made English mustard, a teaspoonful each of capers and minced cucumber pickle, and finally add slowly a well beaten egg. As soon as the egg is all in, take from the fire. JANUARY I4TH "There was a large, substantial, cold boiled leg of mutton, at the bottom of the table, shaking like blanc-mange." — Charles Dickens ("Sketches by Boz "). FOR chocolate blanc-mange take half a package of gelatine dissolved in a cupful of cold water, stir into it a pint of hot milk (half milk and half cream is better), and a scant half cup of sugar; add four heaping tablespoonfuls of chocolate rubbed smooth with a little milk. Stir over the fire until the mixture is about to boil ; when nearly cold flavor with a teaspoonful of vanilla and turn into a mould wet with cold water. A boiled custard or whipped cream served with this is a decided improvement. JANUARY iSTH "A little strong gravy soup lubricated and gelatinized with a littie tapioca." — Charles Reade ("It Is Never Too Late To Mend"). IF you have three-quarters of an hour's notice to make an emergency soup you can have one answering the above description. Cook in a quart of boiling water a cupful of pearl tapioca ; dissolve in a cup of hot water half a dozen bouillon capsules or an equal amount of beef extract; strain and add to the tapioca with a cupful of canned tomatoes, a little chopped onion; season rather highly ; put into the tureen small squares of bread browned in the oven. Some cooks also put into the tureen a well-beaten egg and on this pour the hot soup. JANUARY i6rH "Then came a dish of meat — ^nature unknown, but supposed to be miscellaneous — singularly chopped up with crumbs of bread, seasoned uniquely though not unpleasantly, and baked in a mould." — Charlotte Bronte ("Shirley"). AN old way of making "English meat pie" is to take finely chopped cold beef, put in a deep baking dish a layer of the meat, strew lightly with bread-crumbs, season highly with salt, pepper, butter, and a few drops of onion-juice; repeat the process till the dish is full or your meat used up. Pour over it a cup of stock or gravy, or, lacking these, hot water with a teaspoonful of butter melted in it; on top a good layer of bread-crumbs should be put, seasoned and dotted with butter. Cover and bake half an hour ; remove the cover and brown. JANUARY 17TH "At this moment Mrs. Hayes' servant appeared with a smoking dish of bacon and greens." — ^Thack- Thackeray ("Catherine"). A NOVEL but very desirable variation on the old dish of bacon and greens is often served in one household to the approval of family and guest. Carefully prepare and cook spinach in the usual way, season it with salt, pepper, and two or three tablespoonfuls of cream, or rather less of butter, after you have drained and chopped it. Fry very crisp thin slices of bacon and lay thickly over the dish of spinach. The combination is appetizing. JANUARY i8th "Old Stella placed a cold fowl upon the table, and followed with a savory omdette." — Hawthorne ("The Marble Faun"). FOR a winter morning there is no better omelette than one made savory with sausage, which should be partly cooked, skinned, if the sausage links are used, and minced fine. Then break and lightly beat to six eggs. Have a small tablespoonful of butter hot in a pan, slip in the eggs, shake gently in one direction. When set add the minced sausage; fold the omelette and serve without delay. JANUARY 19TH ''At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen, At the bottom was tripe in swinging tureen." -AjOLDSMTTH.