Cassell's dictionary of cookery

Yale Boat Pie (an American recipe).— Lay three or four pounds of steak from the, under-cut of a round of beef in a middlingsized dish, having seasoned it with pepper and salt. Have a couple of chickens at hand, cut in pieces and seasoned ; place them on . the steak, and over them one dozen and a half of fresh fat oysters without the liquor. Add half a dozen fresh hard-boiled eggs, and after damping the bottom of the dish with half a pint of strong ale, cover the whole with fresh mushrooms, adding to these half a pound of glaze or plain neat's-foot jelly; lay over the dish a substantial paste, and bake "in a brisk oven. This pie is excellent for a picnic or water excursion. Yam.— The yam is a slender herbaceous vine, having large tuberous roots, which are much used as food in Africa and the East and West Indies. They are mealy, and thought easy of digestion, are palatable, and not inferior to any roots now in use either for delicacy of flavour or nutriment. They are eaten either roasted or boiled, and the flour is also made into bread and puddings. There are many varieties of the roots, some spreading out like the fingers, others twisted like a serpent ; others again are very small, scarcely weighing more than a pound, with a whitish ash-coloured bark, whereas the bark is usually black. The flesh of the yam is white or purplish, and viscid, but becomes farinaceous or mealy when cooked. " A species of yam {Dioscorea Batatas)," says a writer ih Chambers's Eneyclopcadia, "has recently been brought from the temperate parts of China, where it appears to have been long in cultivation, and is found to succeed well in France. It is hardy eneugh to endure the climate even of Scotland without injury, but the heat of the summer is not sufficiently great and long-continued for its profitable growth, so that in general the plant merely lives, without producing a large tuber. The root is of a very fine quality, and attains a very considerable size. The stem requires the support of a pole round which it twines ; the leaves are more elongated and acuminated than those of the West Indian yams; the root strikes perpendicularly down into the ground, and forms its tuber often at a very considerable depth, which is sometimes inconvenient to the cultivator, but this is prevented by putting a slate under it." Yams, American. — Yams, when roasted or boiled, form a nutritious and palatable article of food. They are excellent prepared as follows : — Cut them into slices half an inch thick, and form them into rounds about the size of the top of a tea-cup. Wash, drain, and dry them well, put them into a well-buttered saucepan, and season with a little salt and grated nutmeg. Moisten with water, cover closely, and let them simmer gentlj' till done enough. Turn them over frequently, that they may be equally and lightly coloured on both sides. Pile them upon a dish. Pour white sauce, sweetened and flavoured, round them, and serve. Time to simmer the slices, about three-quarters of an hour. Yankee Cakes.— Beat a cupful of butter