This superb Lincolnshire dish of salt pork filled with herbs is known as stuffed chine. Verlaine, in the mid-1870s, spent a year as a schoolmaster just north of Boston. He liked chine so much that he tried to find it elsewhere in England, but without success.

To buy a chine, stuffed and cooked, or uncooked and ready for you to stuff, apply to A.W. Curtis and Sons of Lincoln (01522 527212). You will receive a square block of meat, cut from between the shoulder blades across the backbone, a nice pink from the cure. Verlaine's chine was stuffed with leeks, spring onions, lettuce, raspberry leaves, parsley, thyme and marjoram. Nowadays parsley suffices, but you will need a great deal - enough to fill a baby's bath.

Take a careful look at your slab of meat. One side will be bordered with fat, the other will show the backbone. Turn the fat towards you, the bone away, with a lean side uppermost. Leaving a border of meat, make a deep slash from fat to bone. You will not go through, as there is the unseen barrier of the vertebrae wings of bone. Repeat, make five slashes in all. Turn over and do the same the other side. Soak the meat for 24 hours.

Meanwhile prepare an enormous chopping of parsley, and other greenery if you like. Use a processor, but do not reduce to a soup. A moist hash is easier to stuff than a coarsely chopped dry pile of parsley. Cram as much as you can into the slashes.

Tie the chine tightly into a cloth. Put into a pan, cover with cold water, and simmer for four hours. Change the water as it becomes salty. Cool in the water for two-three hours, remove, drain and press under a weight, with the meat still in its cloth.

To serve, unwrap the chine, and slice it form the fat end, parallel to the fat. The slices tend to fall apart, but reassemble them on the plate. In Lincolnshire you eat stuffed chine with vinegar, but vinaigrette and salad with bread and butter and mustard seem better to me.

A mystery dish appears often in Parson Woodforde's diary, evidently a special dish, called the Charter. He ate it first in 1777, at the house of a neighbouring cleric, a bachelor who kept a good table. Although it is clear from other entries that the Charter was a custard, nobody knew exactly what it was. Eventually some energetic inquiries by Mrs Baker of the Parson Woodforde Society produced the recipe which was published in the Society's magazine in 1968.

The Charter

Serves 6

600ml (1pint) cream, single or whipping
strips of peel from 1/2 lemon
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
sugar
18 dried apricot halves

Mix cream with lemon peel and leave overnight. Or, if you are in a hurry, bring them slowly to just under boiling point, then remove from the heat and leave until the cream is lightly flavoured. Beat the eggs and egg yolks, then add the strained cream, cold or tepid, and sweeten to taste - but very mildly as the apricots will be sweet. Divide between six small pots or ramekins. Cover with foil and stand on a rack in a wide pan. Pour in boiling water to come a little way up the pots and transfer to a low oven, gas 2, 150C (300F) for 30 minutes. Check after 25 minutes with a narrow-bladed knife: If it comes out only slightly creamy, remove the pots from the water-bath and leave to cool. The custards will continue to cook and firm up as they cool down. Remove their foil caps straight away, or they will drip water on to the custards as they cool.

Now deal with the apricots, which can also be done in advance, if more convenient. Pour boiling water over them and leave for an hour. Drain and add more water to cover. Simmer until tender, covered. Add 3 level tablespoons of sugar, and boil steadily, shaking the apricots or turning them over gently until they look glossy and candied, and the liquid has almost vanished. Watch attentively to avoid burning. Turn on to a rack to drain. Put on to the Charter custards just before serving. If you have glace apricots or apricots in brandy, they could be used instead: The thing to avoid is canned apricots. Fresh apricots poached in syrup and well-drained would be more refreshing in summer.

The same custard, topped with a layer of syrup and grilled, makes a good burnt cream (creme brûlée).