SOME OLD RECIPES
Indifference of the Chineses — A nasty potion — A nastier — White
Bastard — Helping it to be eager — Improving Malmsey — Death of the
Duke of Clarence — Mum is _not_ the word — English champagne — Life
without Ebulum a blank — Cock ale — How to dispose of surplus poultry
— Painful fate of a pauper — _Potage pauvre_ — Duties of the old
English housewife — Election of wines, not golf — Muskadine — Lemon
wine — Familiar recipe — King William’s posset — Pope’s ditto.
“The Chineses,” says a very old work on liquid nourishment, “make
excellent Drink of Rice, which is very pleasant of taste, and is
preferred by them before wine.”
But, like the Germans, the Chineses will eat and drink pretty nearly
anything. And this is the cheering mixture which the Chineses sampled
in the new German colony of Kiant-schan, according to the _Frankfurter
Zeitung_:—
“Sitting under the poplars one can imagine oneself in the courtyard
of an old German feudal castle. The hamper is opened, and the cold
mountain stream flowing before the temple serves as an ice cellar.
Once more the male population of the village puts in an appearance,
standing {37} round the table in amazement at all the unheard-of
things happening. The greatest success attends the uncorking of the
Apollinaris bottles. The bottle is pointed at the onlookers, and the
cork having been loosened it flies into their faces with a loud report.
At first they are greatly alarmed, then they enjoy the joke hugely, and
at last they all squat on the ground in a circle, and send a deputy to
the table of the foreigners, bearing a teacup. The petition is granted,
and in the teacup an exquisite brew is prepared. The drainings of all
the beer bottles are collected, to which is added a little claret
and a liberal proportion of Apollinaris, and then, in order to lend
greater consistency to the beverage, some sausage skins are mixed with
it. The teacup circulates amongst the Chinese, and each sips it with
reverential awe. Some of them make fearful grimaces, but not one has
the courage of his opinion, and it is evident that, on the whole, the
drink is voted a good one, although, perhaps, its flavour is somewhat
rare.”
Next, please. Oh, here is another, about some neighbours of the
Chineses.
“In the Isle Formosa, not far from China, the Natives make a Drink as
strong and intoxicative as Sack, out of Rice, which they soak in warm
water, and then beat it to a paste in a Mortar; then they chew some
Rice-meal in their mouths, which they spit to a pot till they have got
about a quart of liquor, which they put to the paste instead of Leaven
or Ferment. And after all be kneaded together till it be Dough, they
put it into a great earthen pot, which they {38} fill up with water,
and so let it remain for two months; by which means they make one of
the most pleasant Liquors a man need drink; the older the better and
sweeter, although you keep it five and twenty or thirty years.”
Weel—I hae ma doots.
Until reading “_The English Housewife_, containing the inward and
outward Vertues which ought to be in a complete Woman, published by
Nicholas Okes at the sign of the golden Unicorne, in 1631,” I had no
skill in making
_White Bastard_
or “aparelling” Muskadine. They used a lot of eggs in the vintry in
those days, and these were the instructions for making white bastard.
Draw out of a pipe of bastard ten gallans, and put to it five gallans
of new milke, and skim it as before, and all to beat it with a parill
of eight whites of egges, and a handfull of Baysalt and a pint of
conduit-water, and it will be white and fine in the morning. But if
you will make very fine bastard—which I, personally, have no ambition
to do—take a white-wine hog’s-head, and put out the lees, and wash
it cleane, and fill it halfe full and halfe a quarter, and put to it
foure gallans of new milke, and beate it well with the whites of sixe
egges, and fill it up with white-wine and sacke, and it will be white
and fine.
Bastard had not much rest in the seventeenth century. The housewife
who might wish “to helpe bastard being eager” had to follow these
directions:—
Take two gallons of the best stoned honey, and {39} two gallons of
white wine, and boyle them in a faire panne, skimme it cleane, and
straine it through a faire cloth that there be no moats in it; then
put to it one ounce of collianders (coriander seeds?) and one ounce of
aniseeds, foure or five orange pils (pips?) dry and beaten to powder,
let them lye three dayes; then draw your bastard into a cleane pipe,
then put in your honey with the rest, and beate it well; then let it
lye a weeke and touch it not, after draw it at pleasure.
In the present enlightened century such a recipe does not read like
helping the possible consumer to be “eager.”
Nor does the following method of treating Malmsey sound promising,
except for making its consumer particularly “for’ard”:—
If you have a good but of Malmsey, and a but or two of sacke that will
not be drunke; for the sacke prepare some empty but or pipe, and draw
it more than halfe full of sacke; then fill it up with Malmsey, and
when your but is full within a little, put into it three gallons of
Spanish cute, the best that you can get—where did they get it?—then
beate it well; then take your taster, and see that it bee deepe
coloured; then fill it up with sacke, and give it aparell, and beate
it well. The aparell is thus: Take the yelkes of tenne egges and beate
them in a cleane bason with a handful of Bay salt, and a quarte of
conduit-water, and beate them together with a little peece of birch,
and beate it till it be as short as mosse; then draw five or sixe
gallons out of your but, then beate it againe, and then fill it up,
and the next day it will be ready to be drawne. This aparell will
serve both for muscadine, bastard, and for sacke. {40}
We are not told in history if the butt of Malmsey in which the Duke of
Clarence shuffled off his mortal and sinful coil had been previously
subjected to this “aparell” and castigation. In the interests of mercy,
let us hope not.
The fluid once known as
_Mum_
never claimed any sort of relationship with sparkling wine, but was
a species of unsophisticated ale, brewed from wheat, or oats, with a
little bean-meal occasionally introduced; in fact, the sort of stuff
we use in the present century to fatten bacon pigs upon. And “mum” has
_not_ been the word with British brewers for some time past.
Champagne has been made in England for a considerable period; but
since the closing of the “night-houses” in Panton Street the trade
therein has not been very brisk. During the present century champagne
in this country—and I grieve to add in France as well—has been chiefly
fabricated from apples, and other fruits; but here is a much older way
of making
_English Champagne_.
Take to three gallons of water nine pounds of Lisbon sugar; boil the
water and sugar half an hour, scum it clean, then have one gallon of
currants pick’d, but not bruis’d, pour the liquor boiling hot over
them, and when cold work it with half a pint of balm two days; then
pour it through a flannel or sieve, then put it into a barrel fit
for it with half an ounce of ising-glass well bruis’d. When it has
done working stop it close for a month, then bottle {41} it, and in
every bottle put a very small lump of double-refin’d sugar. This is
excellent wine, and has a beautiful colour.
“Life without Ebulum,” writes a friend, an instructor of youth in the
ingenuous arts, in forwarding me the recipe, “is a void to most people
who have not cultivated the eringo root in their back gardens.” I have
never tasted ebulum, preferring my ale neat and unadorned, but this is
how to prepare
_Ebulum_.
To a hogshead of strong ale take a heap’d bushel of elderberries,
and half a pound of juniper berries beaten; put in all the berries
when you put in the hops, and let them boil together till the berries
break in pieces; then work it up as you do ale. When it has done
working, add to it half a pound of ginger, half an ounce of cloves, as
much mace, an ounce of nutmegs, and as much cinnamon grosly beaten,
half a pound of citron, as much eringo root, and likewise of candied
orange-peel. Let the sweetmeats be cut in pieces very thin, and put
with the spice into a bag, and hang it in the vessel when you stop it
up. So let it stand till ’tis fine, then bottle it up, and drink it
with lumps of double-refin’d sugar in the glass.
One of the quaintest beverages of which I ever heard, or read, is
_Cock Ale_.
In order to make this, the _Compleat Housewyfe_ instructs us to take
ten gallons of ale, and a large {42} cock, the older the better.
Parboil the cock, flea (flay?) him, and stamp him in a stone mortar
till his bones are broken (you must craw and gut him when you flea
him), then put the cock into two quarts of sack, and put to it three
pounds of raisins of the sun stoned, some blades of mace, and a few
cloves; put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find
the ale has done working, put the ale and bag together into a vessel;
in a week or nine days bottle it up, fill the bottles but just above
the neck, and give it the same time to ripen as other ale.
I have frequently read of the giving of “body” to ale and stout, by
means of the introduction of horseflesh; and an old song used to tell
us that upon one of the paupers in a certain workhouse happening,
inadvertently, to fall head-foremost into the copper,
dreadful to tell, he was boiled in the soup,
which, on that account, in all probability so strengthened the
constitutions of the other paupers as to render them impatient of
workhouse discipline. The man who disappeared mysteriously—this is Mr.
Samuel Weller’s story—and who unwittingly furnished “body” for the
sausages supplied to the neighbourhood, was, after all, benefiting his
fellow-men. But to put the rooster into the ale-cask smacks somewhat of
barbarism; and thank goodness we do not work off our surplus poultry in
that fashion nowadays. But these barbarians were not ashamed; for lo!
facing me is “another way” for the manufacture of rooster-beer.
Take an old red, or other cock, and boyle him {43} indifferent well;
then flea his skin clean off, and beat him flesh and bones in a stone
mortar all to mash, then slice into him half a pound of dates, two
nutmegs quartered, two or three blaids of mace, four cloves; and put
to all this two quarts of sack that is very good; stop all this up
very close that no air may get to it for the space of sixteen hours;
then tun eight gallons of strong ale into your barrel so timely as
it may have done working at the sixteen hours’ end; and then put
thereinto your infusion and stop it close for five days, then bottle
it in stone bottles; be sure your corks are very good, and tye them
with pack-thread; and about a fortnight or three weeks after you may
begin to drink of it; you must also put into your infusion two pound
of raisins of the sun stoned.
Holy Moses! What a drink!
“It is necessary,” wrote a chronicler of the day, “that our English
Housewife be skilfull in the election, preservation, and curing of all
sorts of wines, because they be usuall charges under her hands, and by
the least neglect must turne the Husband to much losse.”
This was written, I may interpolate, before the bicycle craze had set
in, and before the era of ladies’ clubs. Fancy asking the New Woman to
elect, preserve, and cure all sorts of wines!
“Therefore,” continues the same writer, “to speak first of the
election of sweete Wines she must be careful that her Malmseys be full
Wines, pleasant, well hewed, and fine; that Bastard be fat, and if it
be tawny it skils not, for the tawny Bastards be always the sweetest.
Muskadine must be great, pleasant, and strong, with a swete {44} sent,
and Amber colour. Sacke, if it be Seres (Xerez?), which it should be,
you shall know it by the marke of a corke burned on one side of the
bung, and they be ever full gadge, and so are no other Sackes; and the
longer they lye the better they be.”
_Muskadine_
was, apparently, made from bastard and malmsey, with the addition of
ginger and new milk (with the cream removed).
Here is a potion bearing the harmless, Band-of-Hopish name of
_Lemon Wine_,
which would not, however, be tolerated at a Salvation Army banquet. The
first part of the recipe will be familiar to many of my young friends.
Take six large lemons, pare off the rind, and cut the lemons and
squeeze out the juice, and in the juice steep the rind, and put it
to a quart of brandy—so far, brother, the court is with you—and let
it stand in an earthen pot close stop’t three days, and then squeeze
six more, and mix with two quarts of spring-water, and as much sugar
as will sweeten the whole, and boil the water and lemons and sugar
together, and let it stand till ’tis cool. Then add a quart of white
wine and the other lemon and brandy, and mix them together, and run it
through a flannel bag into some vessel. Let it stand three months and
bottle it off. Cork your bottles very well, and keep it cool; it will
be fit to drink in a month or six weeks. {45}
Cheer-oh! This potion reads well, and I know a punch which bears some
resemblance thereto. But why call it lemon wine? Do not the brandy and
the white wine deserve some recognition in the nomenclature?
What is understood by the name
_Barley Wine_
nowadays is a particularly strong brew of ale. With the ancients,
however, it was a drink which might have been with safety handed round
at breaking-up parties in a young ladies’ school.
Take half a pound of French barley, and boil it in three waters, and
save three pints of the last water, and mix it with a quart of white
wine, half a pint of borage-water, as much clary-water, and a little
red rose-water, the juice of five or six lemons, three quarters of a
pound of fine sugar, and the thin yellow rind of a lemon; brew all
these quick together, run it through a strainer, and bottle it up.
’Tis pleasant in hot weather, and very good in fevers.
In the matter of possets—of which more anon—the following reads like a
seductive winter’s beverage, especially if the imbiber have a cold in
the head. Fear not the bile, but read the directions for making
_King William’s Posset_.
Take a quart of cream, and mix with it a pint of ale, then beat the
yolks of ten eggs and the whites of four; when they are well beaten,
put them to {46} your cream and ale. Sweeten to your taste and slice
some nutmeg in it; set it over the fire, and keep it stirring all the
while, and when ’tis thick, and before it boils, take it off, and pour
it into the bason you serve it in to the table.
Here is another, even more seductive.
_To make the Pope’s Posset._
Blanch and beat three-quarters of a pound of almonds so fine that they
will spread between your fingers like butter, put in water as you beat
them to keep them from oiling. Then take a pint of sack or sherry, and
sweeten it very well in double-refin’d sugar, make it boiling hot,
and at the same time put half a pint of water to your almonds, and
make them boil; then take both off the fire, and mix them very well
together with a spoon. Serve it in a china dish.
_Frontiniac Wine_
was simplicity itself.
Take six gallons of water and twelve pounds of white sugar, and
six pounds of raisins of the sun cut small; boil them together one
hour; then take of the flowers of elder, when they are falling and
will shake off, the quantity of half a peck; put them in the liquor
when ’tis almost cold, and next day put in six spoonfuls of syrup of
lemons, and four spoonfuls of ale yeast; and two days after put it
into a vessel that is fit for it, and when it has stood two months
bottle it off.
In the olden times, just before Oliver Cromwell was a going concern,
there were two sorts of what was then called {47}
_Renish Wine_,
that is to say, Elstertune and Barabant.
“The Elstertune,” says my informant, “are best, you shall know it
by the Fat, for it is double bard and double pinned”—I have not the
faintest idea what he means, but those are his words; “the Barabant is
nothing so good, and there is not so much good to be done with them
as with the other. If the Wines be good and pleasant, a man may rid
away a Hogshead or two of White wine, and this is the most vantage a
man can have by them; and if it be slender and hard, then take three
or four gallons of stone-honey and clarify it cleane; then put into
the honey four or five gallons of the same wine, and then let it seeth
a great while, and put into it twopence in cloves bruised, let them
seeth together, for it will take away the sent of honey; and when it
is sodden take it off, and set it by till it be thorow cold; then take
foure gallons of milke and order it as before, and then put all into
your wine, and all to beate it; and (if you can) role it, for that is
the best way; then stop it close and let it lie, and that will make it
pleasant.”
Possibly, but it seems a deal of trouble to take over a wine.
And now let us adjourn to a more familiar subject, for discussion in
the next chapter.
{48}