Important: Safety Warning
This page prescribes plants as medicine according to pre-modern medical theory. Several of the plants named are toxic, correct identification is difficult, and the doses given have no scientific basis. Do not ingest or apply any preparation described here.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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DECOCTION OF BARLEY (COMPOUND)
Boil 2 pints of barley water (see above) with 2½ ounces of sliced figs, 4 drachms of bruised fresh licorice, 21/½ ounces of raisins, and 1 pint of water, down to 2 pints, and strain. Effect, the same as barley water, but, in addition, laxative.
A reduction of the plain barley water that precedes it in the book, sweetened and made gently laxative with dried fruit and licorice root. It is essentially a medicinal tisane, and the proportions matter more than the technique.
- DrachmsAn apothecaries' drachm is one-eighth of an ounce, roughly 3.5-4 g, so 4 drachms is about half an ounce or 15 g of licorice root. The unit points to a pharmacy rather than kitchen origin for the measurement.
- "Fresh licorice"This means the root of Glycyrrhiza glabra, bruised to open the fibres, not confectionery. Dried cut root from a herb supplier is the closest modern equivalent; black licorice candy is mostly sugar and often flavoured with anise instead.
- The barley water baseThe recipe referenced "above" is presumably the usual pearl barley simmered in water and strained. Pearl barley is still sold everywhere; pot barley works but takes longer and gives a cloudier liquid.
- The reductionThree pints of liquid go in and two come out, so about a third boils away. Keep it at a bare simmer uncovered and check the volume against a marked jug rather than guessing by eye.
- StrainingStrain while hot through muslin or a fine sieve, pressing the fruit lightly. The dissolved fruit sugars carry most of the gentle laxative effect the recipe claims, with the licorice contributing as well.
- Licorice in quantityGlycyrrhizin raises blood pressure and depletes potassium when taken regularly over days or weeks. A cup or two is unremarkable; this is not something to drink daily, and anyone on blood-pressure or heart medication should leave it alone.
- Yield and keepingTwo pints, or four to five glasses. It has no preservative beyond its own sugar, so refrigerate and use within two days; barley infusions sour quickly at room temperature.
Barley water is one of the oldest continuously used sickroom drinks in Europe, prescribed in Greek and Roman medicine as ptisane and still listed in nineteenth-century pharmacopoeias as decoctum hordei. The compound version here, with figs, raisins and licorice, follows a standard officinal formula that appeared in British and American dispensatories under names like decoctum hordei compositum; the figs and raisins supply sugar and mild bulk, the licorice masks the flatness of the barley and was itself regarded as demulcent. Its presence in a general household cookbook reflects how much domestic nursing was expected of the housewife, in an era when a sick child or a convalescent adult was managed at home and the cook was also the dispenser. The drachm measurement is suggestive: it points to a recipe shaped by the language of the dispensatory rather than the kitchen.