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Corn-Flour Jelly
Mix in a tumbler a tea-spoonful of corn-flour with a little cold water. Pour upon it sufficient boiling water to form a clear jelly, stirring it well during the time it is being poured on; then add a glass of sherry.
A one-line invalid's drink from the era when cornstarch gruel was medicine. It works, but only if the starch actually reaches gelatinisation temperature, which a tumbler of poured-on water barely manages.
- Corn-flour is cornstarchBritish "corn-flour" means pure maize starch (cornflour), not the American finely milled cornmeal sold as corn flour. Substituting cornmeal gives you gritty porridge, not a clear jelly.
- The hinge: heat, not just hot waterCornstarch begins to gelatinise around 145 to 160F but needs to approach boiling to thicken fully and lose its raw, chalky taste. Boiling water poured into a cold glass will drop below that almost at once, so the safer route is to slake the starch in cold water and cook the mixture in a small pan for a minute until it turns from milky to translucent.
- QuantitiesTumblers of the period ran roughly 8 to 10 fl oz, but the recipe fixes no volume: it says only 'sufficient boiling water to form a clear jelly.' A single teaspoon of starch will set only a small glassful, so add the water sparingly and judge by consistency.
- "A glass of sherry"Cookery books of the period commonly reckoned a wine glass at about 2 fl oz, smaller than a modern glass, though the recipe specifies only 'a glass'. Add it at the end rather than boiling it, since prolonged heat drives off the aroma.
- Use a warmed vessel if you keep to the tumblerPouring boiling water into cold glass risks cracking it. Rinse the tumbler with hot water first, and use a thick-walled or tempered glass.
- Season itThe original gives no sugar, lemon or nutmeg, though these often appear in comparable invalid recipes. Plain starch and sherry is bland; a teaspoon of sugar and a scrape of lemon zest or nutmeg makes it drinkable.
- YieldOne serving, and it should be drunk warm. On standing it sets firm and weeps, so it does not keep or reheat well.
This belongs to the large Victorian genre of invalid cookery, the thin starches, beef teas and arrowroot jellies fed to convalescents, nursing mothers and the elderly when solid food was thought too taxing. Purified maize starch became a cheap household staple in Britain from the 1850s, sold in packets as "corn-flour" and heavily marketed as a light, digestible food for the sick. The sherry is not a flourish but the point of the dish: fortified wine was widely used as a stimulant and restorative, and near-identical recipes appear with brandy, port or plain milk depending on what the patient was thought to need.