Nellie Bly

Pittsburg Dispatch/May 16, 1885

How Much it Will Cost to Fill It—A Cheap But Nice Sunday Dinner

Vegetable soup.

Boiled Salmon.

Egg sauce.

Spring Lamb.

Mint Sauce.

New Peas.

Asparagus.

Tomato—Mayonnaise.

Lemon Custard.

Coffee.

The above is a very simple bill of fare, which any good housekeeper knows how to get up. It makes an excellent spring dinner for Sunday. It may be well to mention that the best way to make mint sauce is as follows: Take one pint of vinegar and sweeten to suit; two bunches of mint chopped fine; heat the vinegar and pour over the sugar and mint; stir thoroughly. This has been found to be the most satisfactory way to prepare mint sauce, in spite of the many recipes.

The market, with its clean stalls, scrubbed isles, neat salesmen and saleswomen wrapped in spotless white aprons, cannot but please the most fastidious of customers. Everything is delightfully fresh and bright, and above all floats the fragrance of thousands of flowers. The money is quickly drawn from the purses of the visitors to cheer the inner man of the household. A large variety of fish is to be found at the stands, at the following prices: halibut, 20 cents a pound. This should always be cooked in the same manner as veal cutlet to be good. Fresh salmon, 10 cents; lake herring, 6 cents; white fish, 12 cents a pound; mackerel, 10 cents a pirce; black bass, 12-1/2c per pound; perch, three pounds for 25 cents; catfish, 12-1/2 cents per pound; roe shad, 50 to 60 cents apiece; boiled lobster, 15 cents; smoked sturgeon, 15 cents, clams, 15 cents a dozen; softshell crabs, $1.50 a dozen.

MEAT—There is no change in the price of meat this week. Best beef roast is still 20 cents; tenderloin and small bone sirloin steak, 20 cents, hamburger steak, 15 cents (this makes an excellent dish when dressed with cracker or bread crumbs and egg, and then fried like sausage); round steak, chuck roast, veal cutlets and roast veal are without change. Spring lamb sells at 20 and 25 cents; mutton chops, 15 cents; fore-quarter, 8 to 10 cents; sugar-cured hams, 12 cents; sliced, 18 cents; dried tongue, 65 cents, sweet bread, 20 to 25 cents a pound; corned beef, 8 to 12 cents. The best lard is still 10 cents a pound. Chipped beef, 24 cents a pound. Chickens are still high—dressed, $1 to $1.50 a pair.

VEGETABLES—The markets are full of spring vegetables. The prices of some are remarkably high and astonishingly low on others. Apples retail at 25 cents per half peck; old potatoes, 20 cents; new, 20 cents per quarter peck; lettuce, 3 and 4 bunches for 25 cents; onions, 5 cents a bunch; Bermudas, 15 cents a quart basket; asparagus, 4 bunches for 75 cents; rhubarb has not fallen, but is yet 5 cents a bunch; very fine tomatoes that come from the southern states can be had for 20 or 25 cents a quart basket; nice cucumbers, 5 to 12 cents, according to size. If before dressing cucumbers are soaked in salt water for awhile and the green water poured off they will not cause sickness. Old cabbage is entirely out of market. The new sells for from 10 to 25 cents a head. String beans sell rapidly at 20 and 25 cents a quart; dried beans are still 10 cents; peas are 25 cents per half peck; oyster plant is only 13 cents a bunch; radishes are still the same price as last week, 5 cents a bunch; beets, 3 cents a bunch; parsley, 1 cent a bunch; carrots, two bunches for 5 cents; turnips, 30 cents a peck; dandelion greens, 10 cents one-half peck; horse radish, 10 cents a root.

Fresh print butter is 35 to 40 cents, and roll butter brings 28 and 30 cents. Eggs are 15 cents a dozen.

FRUITS—Strawberries are now quite delicious, and sell rapidly at 30 and 35 cents a quart. Cranberries are selling at 15. Oranges can be bought from 10 to 60 cents. Catanias are the highest flavored. They are seedless and very juicy. Bananas are very high just at present—30 to 75 cents a dozen. The best lemons bring 50 cents, the lowest 15 cents a dozen. Pineapples sell from 25 to 75 cents.

Mush cakes are still selling, notwithstanding the warm days, but where 5,000 were sold a day in winter, not 500 are sold now. The mush stand closes in July and August. Yellow and white hominy is 5 cents a quart.