RUMBLED EGGS

3 eggs
2 oz. butter
1 tsp. cream or milk
Buttered toast

Very convenient for invalids, or when required, a light dish for supper. Beat up three eggs with two ounces of fresh butter, or well-washed salt butter; add a teaspoonful of cream or new milk. Put all in a saucepan and keep stirring it over the fire for nearly five minutes, until it rises up like a soufflé, when it should be immediately dished on buttered toast.

From Godey's Lady's Book magazine, reader-submitted recipe from 1866.

Comment: While the author prefers to compare this to a soufflé, we must confess to suspecting a bit of "it sounds so much tastier in French!" classism at work here. This is not a durn thing but scrambled eggs after all, and the bit of butter and cream should make it tasty indeed.

Most cookbooks of the period had entire sections devoted to "cooking for the sick" and "invalid" was an all too common status in the years of the war, and long afterwards. Also included in the category would be those who, while otherwise healthy, had lost or damaged teeth and consequent difficulty chewing hard foods.

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