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TAMARIND WHEY
Mix an ounce of tamarind pulp with a pint of milk, strain and sweeten. Or, simply stir a table-spoon of tamarinds into a pint of water.
TO REMOVE GREASE FROM BROTHS FOR THE SICK.-After pouring in dish, pass clean white wrapping-paper quickly over the top of broth, using several pieces, till all grease is removed.
A sick-room drink from the era when whey — the thin liquid left when milk is curdled — was standard invalid fare. Two versions are given: a true whey, and a plain tamarind water.
- The hinge: the milk is meant to curdleThe hinge: the milk is presumably meant to curdle -- Tamarind is acidic, and the title suggests "mix and strain" is shorthand for letting it break the milk into curds and whey; the recipe itself gives no method. Comparable whey recipes warm the milk before adding the acid, let it stand until it separates, then strain and discard the curd. What you drink is the pale, tart liquid.
- QuantitiesAn ounce of pulp is about 2 level tablespoons; a pint here is the US pint, 2 cups. Expect roughly 1 to 1½ cups of strained whey, a single invalid's serving.
- Which tamarindNineteenth-century kitchens bought tamarind as sticky preserved pulp, seeds and fibre included, imported from the West Indies. Compressed block tamarind is the closest thing today — soak and press it through a sieve first. Bottled tamarind concentrate is much stronger, and some brands are salted; start with a teaspoon or two in place of the ounce and taste.
- SweeteningNo amount is given, only the instruction to sweeten. Strained tamarind whey is sharp; a teaspoon or two of sugar or honey per cup is about right.
- The second version is not a whey at all"A table-spoon of tamarinds into a pint of water" makes tamarind water — no milk, no curdling, nothing to strain except fibre and seeds. It is the simpler and more palatable of the two, and worth chilling.
- The appended grease noteThe paragraph about wrapping-paper is a separate household hint, headed as such, printed immediately after the drink. The recipe calls for clean white wrapping paper; a folded paper towel does the same job, and chilling the broth so the fat sets is more thorough still.
Whey drinks were a fixture of nineteenth-century invalid cookery, and cookbooks of the 1870s and 80s list them by the acid used — wine whey, cream of tartar whey, mustard whey, vinegar whey — on the theory that the curd was hard to digest while the thin whey was nourishing and cooling. Tamarind reached American kitchens as preserved pulp shipped from the West Indies, where the pods were packed in sugar or syrup for export, and it was valued in sick-rooms as much for its gentle laxative reputation as for its flavour. Buckeye Cookery (1877), compiled by Ohio housewives, devotes a full section to food for the sick — the heading is usually given in that form — because in the 1870s home nursing was the household's work and the kitchen supplied the pharmacy; the abrupt jump here from a drink to a tip for skimming broth is typical of how such sections read.