It is now breakfast time. There are strawberries in Japan, but there are also strawberries in the Blue Grass, and I shall not risk international complications by in- vidious comparison. In the Blue Grass they go with a yellow cream of which I dare not think. You shall find that same cream in a cup of fragrant coffee as well. There is broiled ham with a gi-ateful odor whose source is a mystery; there are plates of hot thin meal batter cakes, each encircled with crisp, delicate black embroidery, and there is golden butter that melts and drips and seeps between the layers. It is too early for game-birds, so those little brown, fat, broiled things resting in the big dish are spring chickens, "frying size," as we say in the Blue Grass, and on another dish there they are again — fried, after Southern style, half submerged in a rich cream of gravy, snow vii THE BLUE GRASS COOK BOOK white. I can go no further now, for the waffles are yet to come. You climb a horse now and ride out into the morning and the sunhght and the fresh air, into the singing of those birds and the rippling stretches of blue grass, wheat and barley and wind-shaken corn. Under full- leafed maples and oaks and sycamores where fat cattle are tearing up rich mouthfuls of grass, and sheep and young lambs are graz- ing and playing along a creek whose banks are grassy to the very water's edge. Three hours you ride, for you must see the whole place that morning. Guests are coming to dinner, and there will be little time in the afternoon, so through lanes in which the wild rose blooms and through woods and meadows you lope for home. How hungry you are ! The pike gate slams, the first guest is coming, and up the hill they wind in buggy, carriage, and on horseback. When all are gathered in the drawing-room, you shall see the host quietly lead some man to the veranda — it is a magic signal that need not be explained. Out there are more of viii INTRODUCTION those frosted silver goblets, flowering with green and " with beaded bubbles winking at the brim." And now dinner. The dining-room is the biggest and sun- niest in the house. On the wall are hunting prints, pictures of game and stag heads. The table runs almost the length of it, and the snowy table-cloth hangs almost to the floor. Before your hostess is a great tureen of calf s-head soup ; before your host a saddle of venison, drenched in a bottle of ancient Madeira and flanked by flakes of red-cur- rant jelly. Before one guest are broiled wild ducks. After the venison comes a great turkey, and last of all a Kentucky ham. " That ham ! Mellow, aged, boiled in champagne, baked brown, spiced deeply » rosy pink within and of a flavor and fra- grance to shatter the fast of a pope; and without a brown-edged white layer so firm that the deft carving knife passing through gave no hint to the eye that it was delicious fat. . . . The rose flakes dropped under ix THE BLUE GRASS COOK BOOK the knife in such thin slices that the edges coiled." After the ham the table-cloth is lifted and the dessert spread on another lying beneath. Then that, too, is raised and the nuts and wines are placed on a third — red damask this time. So much for breakfast and dinner — the old-time dinner. At the thought of supper the pen of this exile halts, and for it the reader may search within.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

It is now breakfast time. There are strawberries in Japan, but there are also strawberries in the Blue Grass, and I shall not risk international complications by invidious comparison. In the Blue Grass they go with a yellow cream of which I dare not think. You shall find that same cream in a cup of fragrant coffee as well. There is broiled ham with a grateful odor whose source is a mystery; there are plates of hot thin meal batter cakes, each encircled with crisp, delicate black embroidery, and there is golden butter that melts and drips and seeps between the layers. It is too early for game-birds, so those little brown, fat, broiled things resting in the big dish are spring chickens, "frying size," as we say in the Blue Grass, and on another dish there they are again — fried, after Southern style, half submerged in a rich cream of gravy, snow white. I can go no further now, for the waffles are yet to come. You climb a horse now and ride out into the morning and the sunhght and the fresh air, into the singing of those birds and the rippling stretches of blue grass, wheat and barley and wind-shaken corn. Under full-leafed maples and oaks and sycamores where fat cattle are tearing up rich mouthfuls of grass, and sheep and young lambs are grazing and playing along a creek whose banks are grassy to the very water's edge. Three hours you ride, for you must see the whole place that morning. Guests are coming to dinner, and there will be little time in the afternoon, so through lanes in which the wild rose blooms and through woods and meadows you lope for home. How hungry you are ! The pike gate slams, the first guest is coming, and up the hill they wind in buggy, carriage, and on horseback. When all are gathered in the drawing-room, you shall see the host quietly lead some man to the veranda — it is a magic signal that need not be explained. Out there are more of those frosted silver goblets, flowering with green and " with beaded bubbles winking at the brim." And now dinner. The dining-room is the biggest and sunniest in the house. On the wall are hunting prints, pictures of game and stag heads. The table runs almost the length of it, and the snowy table-cloth hangs almost to the floor. Before your hostess is a great tureen of calf's-head soup ; before your host a saddle of venison, drenched in a bottle of ancient Madeira and flanked by flakes of red-currant jelly. Before one guest are broiled wild ducks. After the venison comes a great turkey, and last of all a Kentucky ham. " That ham ! Mellow, aged, boiled in champagne, baked brown, spiced deeply; rosy pink within and of a flavor and fragrance to shatter the fast of a pope; and without a brown-edged white layer so firm that the deft carving knife passing through gave no hint to the eye that it was delicious fat. . . . The rose flakes dropped under the knife in such thin slices that the edges coiled." After the ham the table-cloth is lifted and the dessert spread on another lying beneath. Then that, too, is raised and the nuts and wines are placed on a third — red damask this time. So much for breakfast and dinner — the old-time dinner. At the thought of supper the pen of this exile halts, and for it the reader may search within.

The Blue grass cook book