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Iceland Moss Jelly
This is soothing in colds, coughs, catarrh, and pulmonary affections generally. Put four ounces of Iceland moss in a quart of water, stirring constantly while on the fire. When it has boiled about forty minutes or more, add two ounces of lump sugar and a wineglass full of white wine. Strain through a jelly-bag, and it will be fit for use when cold and firm. A BLANC MANGE may be made by boiling in milk instead of water, omitting the wine, and flavoring with lemon, vanilla or other flavor.
A gelling agent rather than a flavour: Iceland moss is a lichen whose polysaccharide (lichenin) sets a soft jelly when boiled out and cooled. The recipe works, but two things decide the result — how much you leach the moss beforehand, and how far you reduce the liquid.
- The hinge: debitter the moss firstDried Iceland moss carries bitter lichen acids that a long boil concentrates. Traditional practice is to soak and rinse the moss in several changes of cold water, discarding each one, before it goes on the heat; some old handbooks used a pinch of soda in the soaking water. Skip this and the jelly is medicinally bitter.
- MeasuresFour ounces of moss is a weight, and dried lichen is very bulky — expect a large bowlful for a quart (32 fl oz / about 950 ml) of water. A wineglass in this period is usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz. Lump sugar is refined white sugar broken from a loaf; 2 oz is about a quarter cup of granulated sugar.
- "Stirring constantly while on the fire"The mucilage sticks and scorches over direct heat. A heavy pan and a low, steady simmer for the full forty minutes is the intent, not a rolling boil.
- Reduction controls the setThe strength of the jelly depends on how much water has gone. If the pan is still nearly full after forty minutes, keep going; the liquid should be noticeably viscous and coat the spoon before straining. Chill several hours to firm.
- StrainingA jelly bag can be replaced with two layers of damp muslin or a fine sieve lined with cheesecloth. Let it drip rather than squeezing, or the jelly clouds.
- The wineA wineglass, about 2 fl oz, added at the end with the sugar; it is there for flavour. Omit it for children, which is effectively what the blancmange variation does.
- The blancmange versionMilk scorches faster than water, so use a double boiler or the lowest possible heat and stir throughout. Sweeten and flavour after straining, while still warm, then pour into a wetted mould.
- Yield and keepingAbout two to three cups of soft jelly, or four small servings. It has no real preservative beyond the sugar and wine — keep it refrigerated and use within two or three days.
- SourcingBuy Iceland moss from a herb or food supplier rather than gathering it. Lichens take up airborne metals from their surroundings, so provenance matters more than with ordinary dried plants.
Iceland moss (Cetraria islandica) is not a moss but a lichen, long gathered across Iceland, Scandinavia and the northern uplands and used both as famine food — dried, ground and stretched into bread — and as a demulcent for coughs. Its appeal to nineteenth-century invalid cookery was its slipperiness: boiled out, the lichenin forms a bland jelly that coats a raw throat. Invalid cookery of the period reflects an assumption that the sick needed food that was soft, pale, faintly sweet and easy to swallow, and that the cook, not the pharmacist, would make it. Iceland moss preparations were sold in European pharmacies well into the twentieth century and it remains a recognised traditional herbal remedy for irritation of the throat, though the pulmonary claims made in this entry go well beyond anything demonstrated.