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To Make Lemonade
Roll the lemons until they become soft. Grate the rinds, cut the lemons in slices, and squeeze them into a pitcher (a new clothes-pin will answer for a squeezer in lieu of something better); pour in the required quantity of water, and sweeten according to taste. The grated rinds, for the sake of their aroma, should be added to it. After mixing thoroughly, set the pitcher aside for half an hour; then strain the liquor through a jelly-strainer, and put in the ice. Travelers may carry a box of lemon sugar, prepared from citric acid and sugar, a little of which in a glass of ice-water will furnish quite a refreshing drink, and one that oftentimes averts sick-headache and biliousness. Citric acid is obtained from the juice of lemons and limes.
A method rather than a formula — no quantities are given at all, which was normal for a drink assembled to taste. The one thing worth taking seriously is the half-hour rest with the grated rind in it.
- Proportions to start fromThe original specifies nothing. A workable ratio is the juice of 6 lemons, 3/4 to 1 cup sugar, and 6 cups water, adjusted after tasting. That yields roughly six glasses.
- Rolling the lemonsPressing and rolling a lemon on the counter ruptures the juice vesicles and makes it noticeably easier to squeeze. Firm pressure with the palm is all that is meant here.
- The grated rind is the pointLemon oil lives in the zest, not the juice, and it carries most of what people recognise as lemon aroma. Grate only the yellow layer; the white pith underneath turns the drink bitter over a long steep.
- The half-hour restSteeping the zest and sliced fruit in the sweetened water lets some of the peel oil come out, which is presumably why the rest is specified; without it the rind contributes less aroma. Some cooks rub the sugar into the zest first, which extracts the oil faster.
- A clothes-pin for a squeezerThe one-piece wooden clothes-pin of the period was a smooth turned peg, and its rounded head would serve against the cut face of the lemon; the recipe does not spell out the technique. Any modern reamer or press does the job better.
- Jelly-strainerA jelly bag is a fine cloth sack for straining preserves. A double layer of cheesecloth in a sieve is the equivalent; the zest and pulp must come out or the drink keeps getting bitter as it stands.
- Ice lastThe ice goes in only after straining, at the very end. Chill the pitcher instead if you want it cold sooner.
- The lemon sugar for travelersCitric acid and sugar is still sold as sour-drink powder and works as described, though it supplies acidity and sweetness with none of the aroma from the peel. The claim that it averts sick-headache and biliousness is period medical thinking, not a reason to drink it.
The instruction to carry citric acid and sugar reflects a real nineteenth-century trade: crystalline citric acid, first isolated from lemon juice in the eighteenth century and later manufactured industrially, was a shelf-stable stand-in for fruit that travelers, soldiers and sailors could keep in a tin. The linked belief that acid drinks correct "biliousness" belongs to a humoral tradition of diet that persisted in domestic manuals long after medicine had moved on, and it is often said to be why so many Victorian recipe books recommend lemon and vinegar drinks in hot weather. The improvised clothes-pin squeezer is a small reminder that the dedicated citrus reamer was not yet standard equipment in every kitchen.