1903 The Flowing Bowl by Edward Spencer

SOME OLD RECIPES

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indifFercnt well ; then flea his skin clean off, and beat him flesh and bones in a stone mortar all to mash, then slice into him half a pound of dates, two nutmegs quartered, two or three blaids of mace, four cloves ; and put to all this two quarts of sack that is very good ; stop all this up very close that no air may get to it for the space of sixteen hours; then tun eight gallons of strong ale into your barrel so timely as it may have done working at the sixteen hours' end ; and then put thereinto your infusion and stop it close for five days, then bottle it in stone bottles ; be sure your corks are very good, and tye them with pack-thread ; and about a fortnight or three weeks after you may begin to drink of it; you must also put into your infusion two pound of raisins of the sun stoned. Holy Moses ! What a drink ! " It is necessary," wrote a chronicler of the day, "that our English Housewife be skilfull in the election, preservation, and curing of all sorts of wines, because they be usuall charges under her hands, and by the least neglect must turne the Husband to much losse." This was written, I may interpolate, before the bicycle craze had set in, and before the era of ladies' clubs. Fancy asking the NewWoman to elect, preserve, and cure all sorts of wines ! " Therefore," continues the same writer, " to speak first of the election of sweete Wines she must be careful that her Malmseys be full Wines, pleasant, well hewed, and fine ; that Bastard be fat, and if it be tawny it skils not, for the tawny Bastards be always the sweetest. Muskadine must be great, pleasant, and strong, with a swete