Bread

Put your flour into
A good deep mug,
Which will bear a weight
And many a tug.

To six pounds of flour
Three spoonfuls of barm*,
Mixed with some water
That must be luke-warm.

Put this in the midst
Of the mug of flour,
Which stir gently in
And leave for an hour.

Then pour on the whole
More clean warm water,
Two spoonfuls of salt,
Knead up like mortar.

Again all must stand
Not far from the fire,
Till it has risen
As you could desire.

When that is all done
You out the dough take,
And shape into loaves,
Which soon you can bake.

“Bread” (#23), Cookery Rhymes. The Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey. Original from The British Library. The original citation is from Cookery Rhymes, Simple Remedies, and Useful Hints, Intended for Girls’ Day Schools by Miss Potter, 7th ed. London: Jarrold and Sons, 1862.

Noun 1.barm - a commercial leavening agent containing yeast cells; used to raise the dough in making bread and for fermenting beer or whiskey
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.

Soup Stew

Half a pound of beef cut in small bits,
(Or mutton or pork, if you please,)
Slice in six potatoes, four turnips,
And throw in a pint of dry peas.

Put these in seven pints of water,
And onions or leeks don’t omit;
Four hours and a half gently boil,
With some oatmeal to make it thick.

When you have mixed the oatmeal in,
And added some salt and pepper;
Boil again, stirring all the time,
And you’ll find no soup can be better.

N. B. – This is excellent soup
Without any meat,
If you’ll put in herbs
Which are called sweet.

“Stew Soup” (#4), Cookery Rhymes. The Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Chadwyck-Healey. Original from The British Library. The original citation is from Cookery Rhymes, Simple Remedies, and Useful Hints, Intended for Girls’ Day Schools by Miss Potter, 7th ed. London: Jarrold and Sons, 1862.

Trifle by Anthony Burgess

Of shining silvery crystal be your bowl,
Big as a priest's paunch or a drunkard's soul.
Take spongecakes then to fill it, very dry,
Divide them lengthwise, lengthwise let them lie,
Inner face upwards. Smear these faces then
With raspberry jam, then jam them shut again_,
Dispose them in the bowl. Take Jerez wine
Or Mavrodaphne; liberally incline
The bottle 'till, like rain on earth sun-baked,
The liquor has not drenched but merely slaked
That spongy thirst. With milk and eggs well-beaten
Seethe up a custard, thick; with honey sweeten_,
Then on your drunken spongecakes swiftly pour
Till they are sunk beneath a golden floor.
Cool until set. Whip cream and spread it deep.
Strew dragees in a silver swoop or sweep.
Cool, and keep cool. A two-hour wait must stifle
Your lust to eat this nothing, this mere TRIFLE.

Printed in Verona, Italy, 1977, by Plain Wrapper Press.(180 copies Retrieved from Darmouth College Library.

Clam Soup

First catch your clams – along the ebbing edges
Of saline coves you’ll find the precious wedges,
With backs up, lurking in the sandy bottom;
Take thirty large ones, put a basin under,
And cleave with knife the stony jaws asunder;
Add water (three quarts) to the native liquor,
Bring to a boil (and, by the way, the quicker
It boils the better, if you’d do it cutely).
Now add the clams, chopped up and minced minutely.
Allow a longer boil of just three minutes,
And while it bubbles quickly stir within its
Tumultuous depths, where still the mollusks mutter,
Four tablespoons of flour and four of butter,
A pint of milk, some pepper to your notion,
And clams need salting, although born of ocean.
Remove from fire (if much boiled they will suffer.
You’ll find that India-rubber isn’t tougher);
After ‘tis off, add three fresh eggs well beaten,
Stir once more, and it’s ready to be eaten.
Fruit of the wave! Oh, dainty and delicious!
Food for the Gods! Ambrosia for Apicius!
Worthy to thrill the soul of sea-born Venus,
Or titillate the palate of Silenus.


By W. A. Croffat, (Croffut?, copy poor) retrieved from Appleton’s Journal, v. 5, no. 2, p. 180, accessed via http://www.hti.umich.edu on 5/3/2005

Receipt for a Winter Salad

Two large potatoes passed through kitchen-sieve
Unwonted softness to the salad give.
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon –
Distrust the condiment which bites too soon,
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault
To add a double quantity of salt.
Three times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,
And once with vinegar procured from town.
True flavor needs it, and your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs.
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, scarce suspected animate the whole.
And, lastly, on the flavored compound toss
A magic teaspoon of anchovy sauce.
Then though green turtle fail, though venison’s tough,
And ham and turkey are not boiled enough,
Serenely full the epicure may say,
“Fate cannot harm me – I have dined today!”


By Sidney Smith, retrieved from Appleton’s Journal, v. 5, no. 2, p. 180, accessed via http://www.hti.umich.edu on 5/3/2005