Ok, so moving along from doughy stuff, I should probably make you aware this is the section where you'll find recipes---ahem---to MAKE YOUR OWN BOOZE.
Perhaps not in this installment, but maybe in the next.
Take the jump anyway so you don't feel like a schmuck when you come back for the next few. Besides, there's some early 20th Century medical benefits to drinking buttermilk listed that might interest some of you.
Boiling water is a very important desideratum in the making of a cup of good coffee or tea, but the average housewife is very apt to overlook this fact. Do not boil the water more than three or four minutes; longer boiling ruins the water for coffee or tea making, (YO, Dearest Jonathan, you paying attention to this?) as mos of its natural properties escape by evaporation, leaving a very insipid liquid composed mostly of lime and iron, that would ruin the best coffee, and give the tea a dark, dead look, which out to be the reverse.
Water left in the tea-kettle over night must never be used for preparing the breakfast coffee; no matter how excellent your coffee or tea may be, it will be ruined by the addition of water that has been boiled more than once.
The medical properties of these two beverages are considerable. Tea is used advantageously in inflammatory diseases and as a cure for the headache. Coffee is suppose to act as a preventative of gravel and gout, and to is influence is ascribed the rarity of those diseases in France and Turkey. Both tea and coffee powerfully counteract the effects of opium and intoxicating liquors; though when taken in excess, and without nourishing food, they themselves produce, temporarily at least, some of the more disagreeable consequences incident to the use of ardent spirits. In general, however, none but persons possessing great mobility of the nervous system, or enfeebled or effeminate constitutions, are injuriously affected by the moderate use of tea and coffee in connection with food.
One full coffeecupful of ground coffee, stirred with one egg and part of the shell, adding a half cupful of cold water. Put it into the coffee boiler and pour on to it a quart of boiling water; as it rises and begins to boil, stir it down with a silver spoon or fork. Boil hard for ten or twelve minutes. Remove from the fire and pour out a cupful of coffee, then pour back into the coffeepot. Place it on the back of the stove or range where it will keep hot (and not boil); it will settle in about five minutes. Send to the table hot. Serve with good cream and lump sugar. Three-quarters of a pound of Java and a quarter of a pound Mocha make the best mixture of coffee.
Equal parts of Mocha and Java coffee; allow one heaping tablespoonful of coffee to each person and two extra to make good strength. Mix one egg with grounds; pour on coffee half as much boiling water as will be needed; let it froth, then stir down grounds, and let boil for five minutes; then let it stand where it will keep hot, but not boil, for five or ten minutes, and add rest of water. To one pint of cream add the white of an egg, well beaten; this is to be put in cups with sugar, and hot coffee added.
For each person allow a large tablespoonful of finely ground coffee, and to every tablespoonful allow a cupful of boiling water; the coffee to be one part Mocha and two of Java.
Have a small iron ring made to fit the top of the coffeepot inside, and to this ring sew a fine muslin bag (the muslin for the purpose must not be too thin). Fit the bag into the pot, pour some boiling water in it, and, when the pot is well warmed, put the ground coffee into the bag; pour over as much boiling water as is required, close the lid, and, when all the water has filtered through, remove the bag, and send the coffee to the table. Making it in this manner prevents the necessity of pour the coffee from one vessel to another, which cools and spoils it. The water should be poured on the coffee gradually so that the infusion may be stronger; and the bag must be well made that none of the grounds may escape through the seams and so make the coffee thick and muddy.
Patented coffeepots on this principle can be purchased at most housefurnishing stores.
Make more coffee than usual at breakfast time and stronger. When cold put on ice. Serve with cracked ice in each tumbler.
Beat the white of an egg, put to it a small lump of butter and pour the coffee into it gradually, stirring it so that it will not curdle. It is difficult to distinguish this from fresh cream. {Ed. I don't fucking think so, but keep on dreaming the big dreams.}
Many drop a tiny piece of sweet butter into the cup of hot coffee as a substitute for cream.
Allow two teaspoonfuls of tea to one large cupful of boiling water. Scald the teapot, put in the tea, pour on about a cupful of boiling water, set it on the fire in a warm place, where it will not boil, but keep very hot, to almost boiling; let it steep or "draw" ten or twelve minutes. Now fill up with as much boiling water as is required. Send hot to the table. It is better to use a china or porcelain teapot, but if you do use metal let it be tin, new, bright and clean; never use it when the tin is worn off and the iron exposed. If you do you are drinking tea-ate of iron. {Ed. Not to mention that anyone you might be serving tea to will think you're one cheap a@@ motherFu@#$er, but that could just be me.}
To make tea to perfection, boiling water must be poured on the leaves directly it boils. Water which has been boiling for more than five minutes, or which has previously boiled, should on no account be used. If the water does not boil, or if it be allowed to overboil, the leaves of the tea will be only half-opened and the tea itself will be quite spoiled. The water should be allowed to remain on the leaves from ten to fifteen minutes.
A Chinese being interviewed for the Cook says: Drink your tea plain. Don't add milk or sugar. Tea-brokers and tea-tasters never do; epicures never do; the Chinese never do. Milk contains fibrin, albumen or some other stuff, and teh tea a delicate amount of tannin. Mixing the two makes the liquid turbid. This turbidity, if I remember the cylcopedia aright, is tannate of fibrin, or leather. People who put milk in their tea are therefore drinking boots and shoes in mild disguise.
Is now served to a considerable extent during the summer months. It is of course used withotu milk, and the addition of sugar only serves to destroy the finer tea flavor. It may be prepared some hours in advance, and should be made stronger than when served hot. It is bottled and placed in the ice chest till required. Use the black or green teas, or both, mixed, as fancied.
Allow half a cupful of grated chocolate to a pint of water and a pint of milk. Rub the chocolate smooth in a little cold water and stir into the boiling water. Boil twenty minutes, add the milk, and boil ten minutes more, stirring it often. Sweeten to your taste.
The French put two cupfuls of boiling water to each cupful of chocolate. The throw in the chocolate just as the water commences to boil. Stir it with a spoon as it boils up, add two cupfuls of good milk, and when it has boiled sufficiently, serve a spoonful of thick whipped cream with each cup.
Six tablespoonfuls of cocoa to each pint of water, as much milk as water, sugar to taste. Rub cocoa smooth in a little cold water; have read on the fire a pint of boiling water; stir in the grated cocoa paste. Boil twenty minutes, add milk and boil five minutes more, stirring often. Sweenten in cups so as to suit different tastes.
Buttermilk, so general regarded as a waste product, has latterly been coming somewhat into vogue, not only as a nutrient, but as a therapeutic agent, and in an editorial article the Canada Lancet, some time ago, highly extolled its virtues. Buttermilk may be roughly described as milk which has lost most of its fat and a small percentage of casein, and which has become sour by fermentation. Long experience has demostrated it to be an agent of superior digestibility. It is, indeed, a true milk peptone---that is, milk already partly digestd, the coagulation of the coagulable portion being loose and flaky, and not of that firm indigestible nature which is the result of the action of the gastric juice upon cow's sweet milk. {Ed.I WANNA BARF!} It resembles koumiss in its nature, and, with the exception of that article, it is the most grateful, refreshing and digestible of the products of milk. It is a decided laxative to the bowels, (Ed. I'll bet it is.} a fact which must be borne in mind in the treatments of typhoid fever, and which may be turned to advantage in the treatment of habitual constipation. It is a diuretic, and may be prescribed with advantage in some kidney troubles. Owing to its acidity, combined with its laxative properties, it is believed to exercise a general impression on the liver. It is well adapted to may cases where it is customary to recommend lime water and milk. It is invaluable in the treatment of diabetes, either exclusively, or alternating with skimmed milk. In some cases of gastric ulcer and cancer of the stomach, it is the only food that can be retained.
Medical Journal
Posted by Kathy at January 12, 2006 11:06 PM | TrackBack
People who put milk in their tea are therefore drinking boots and shoes in mild disguise.Thank you.
P.S. I Wonder if you shouldn't re-iterate the source of these gems, lest some new readers think you've gone completely off your nut.
Posted by: MRN aka "The Husband" at January 13, 2006 08:13 AM