(from The Cook’s Oracle by William Kitchiner, MD, New York, 1829)
Ingredients:
1 spare-rib of pork
flour
butter
sage leaves, powdered
pepper
Instructions:
A bacon spare-rib usually weighs about eight or nine pounds, and will take from two to three hours to roast it thoroughly; not exactly according to its weight, but the thickness of the meat upon it, which varies very much. Lay the thick end nearest to the fire.
A proper bald spare-rib of eight pounds weight (so called because almost all the meat is pared off), with a steady fire, will be done in an hour and a quarter. There is so little meat on a bald spare-rib, that if you have a large, fierce fire, it will be burned before it is warm through. Joint it nicely, and crack the ribs...