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Colonial recipes, from old Virginia and Maryland manors

1907

Page 18 · 1 recipe record on this page

Presented as published in 1907. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
second part of the custard. Heat to a boil and set away to cool. Chop the crystallized fruit fine and mix with the third part of the cus- tard. Heat to a boil and set aside to cool. Season the chocolate with vanilla, the almonds and citron with bitter almonds ; the fruit needs no flavoring. Bake your cake in four layers. Between the first and second put the chocolate, between the second and third put the citron and almonds, and in the last layer (the top layer) put the fruit. Ice with a lemon icing. This is a royal old cake recipe, and has been used in the Mason family for generations. It is as delicious as it sounds troublesome. Mrs. Isabel S. Mason. MINT Oh, give me a day of boyhood, Filled with ardent glee; Of careless fun by the mint-bound run Where sucker and chub bites free. There is never a breath so spicy, Nor ever so rare a glint, As the golden light of June day bright, And the redolence of mint. All the wealth of virgin freshness Spread out for my unshod feet, The poignant scent with music blent, From the songs of thrushes sweet. When my rod was Freedom's scepter, And my battered straw her crown; But, ah, to-day I slave away In the blare of the brazen town. I starve for the cool, wild freshness, I thirst for the ripples' glint; I pine for a day to fish away From a bank embound with mint. — Isabel S. Mason. 78 Mint 79 MINT (Mentha aquatica) What old Virginia or Maryland manor has not a mint bed in some cool, damp, shady nook underneath one of its grand old trees? And what a restful spot it is ! Dr. van Dyke says : " It is the bed whereon memory loves to lie and dream. . . . When its perfume rises the shrines of the past are unveiled and remi- niscence begins." And it truly is an echoing symphony from year to year and from age to age! When we think of the forms that have bent over it when it was all sparkling with dew, and the fair hands that have gathered it, — those long, slender hands with tapering fingers that have long since crumbled to dust — what memories throne:! In the moonlight of memorv we can see those dear faces and hear those sweet voices, as, " Far, far away, like bells at even- ing tolling," they come and go. Ah, yes, it is now but a memory, a fra- grance! Like the perfume of some rare wild flower, it eludes our grasp, but returns again and again to charm our senses. 80 Mint And who that has read about " Polly " and " the Colonel" and " Marse Bob " and " Char- ity " and " Drinkwater Torm " has not thirsted, yes, thirsted, for one of those mint juleps made by " Drinkwater's " unsteady hands, and served in one of those " silver cans with frosted sides." But here is a recipe for a rare old mint julep of old Maryland, which, no doubt, even would have pleased the Col- onel and perhaps tempered his wrath. MINT JULEP (Weldon) Mint Julep