Wash very carefully, leaf by leaf, to get rid of sand and dust. Lay in very cold water until you are ready to cook it. Boil forty-five minutes; drain in a colander and chop fine in a wooden tray. Beat then three great tablespoonfuls of butter (this for a peck of spinach), a teaspoonful of white sugar, and half as much salt, with a little pepper. Whip all to a soft green mass and return to the empty pot.
As you stir it over the fire add a cupful of rich milk—cream, if you have it—whip up hard and turn into a deep dish.
Cut two hard-boiled eggs into thin slices, and lay in order on the spinach when dished.
12
DESSERTS.
ENGLISH cooks would call this “A Chapter on Sweets.” “Dessert” with them is usually applied to fruits, nuts, etc. Webster defines the word thus:
“A service of pastry, fruit or sweetmeats at the close of an entertainment; the last course at the table after the meat.”
Without dwelling upon the fact that when fruit and coffee are served they follow pastry or puddings or sweetmeats, we take advantage of the elastic definition and assume that the dessert of the family dinner is a single preparation of “sweets.”
The too-universal PIE will not appear on our menu. I am tempted to wish its manufacture might soon be numbered among the lost arts.