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Linseed Tea, for Gout, Gravel, etc
As an accessory it is in good repute.
Take one tablespoonful of flaxseed, one quart of water and a little orange-peel. Boil ten minutes in a clean porcelain kettle, sweeten with honey, add the juice of a lemon, to allay irritation of the chest. Omitting the lemon, it is good for irritation of the lungs, gout and gravel.
A mucilaginous flaxseed infusion of the sort kept simmering in Victorian sick-rooms. It makes a thin, slippery, faintly citrus drink; treat it as a beverage, not as medicine.
- Linseed is flaxseedThe two words mean the same seed; in American usage "linseed" is now heard mainly in the paint trade, though British usage keeps it for the edible seed. Use whole brown or golden flaxseed from the grocery, never linseed oil, and never boiled-oil products sold for wood, which carry metallic driers.
- The porcelain kettleThis means an enamelled cast-iron or graniteware pan, specified because lemon juice and orange peel attack bare iron, copper and tin and pick up a metallic taste. Enamelled steel or stainless is the modern equivalent.
- Quantities and yieldOne tablespoon of seed to a quart of water is a very weak infusion, and ten minutes of open boiling will drive off some water; expect a little under a quart. For a thicker result, double the seed rather than boiling longer.
- Strain itThe recipe never says so. Pour through a fine sieve or a doubled square of cheesecloth while hot, pressing lightly; the seeds themselves are gritty and the point is the mucilage they release into the water.
- Orange peelUse a couple of strips of zest from an unwaxed orange, avoiding the white pith, which turns bitter with sustained boiling. Add it for the last few minutes rather than at the start.
- Sweeten and acidify off the heatStir in the honey and lemon juice after the pan leaves the burner. Honey's aroma is largely driven off by boiling, and the acid does nothing useful in a hot pan.
- "Gravel"Nineteenth-century shorthand for kidney and bladder stones, and gout was understood as a related disorder of the same system. The claims here have no clinical standing; the drink is soothing and mildly diuretic, nothing more.
- KeepingMucilaginous infusions spoil and turn slimy fast. Make what will be drunk the same day and refrigerate any remainder no more than 24 hours.
Flaxseed tea was one of the great standbys of the domestic sick-room, appearing in English and American household manuals for well over a century before this book: the seed's outer coat releases a soluble mucilage that coats an irritated throat, which is the whole basis of its reputation as a demulcent. The framing here is often read as a humoral inheritance, though by this period the pairing of gout and "gravel" was framed chiefly in terms of a lithic (uric) acid diathesis; either way, the two were long grouped together as diseases of excess to be flushed out with copious bland fluids, so the same pot was prescribed for a cough and for a stone. Cookbooks of the period were still expected to double as home medical guides, since a doctor's visit cost money and most nursing was done by the woman of the house with whatever was in the pantry. The lemon is added in some cases and omitted in others — it is left out for lung irritation as well as for gout and gravel — without the recipe explaining why.