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JELLY, WEAK WINE (Invalid Cookery)
Put an ounce of isinglass into an enamelled saucepan with three-quarters of a pint of water and three ounces of sugar. Boil gently until the isinglass is dissolved, remove the scum carefully as it rises, and throw in a tea-spoonful of cold water two or three times, to assist it in doing so. Strain the jelly through a bag which has been wrung out of hot water, add the juice of a couple of oranges, and a quarter of a pint of good sherry, and pour the liquid into glasses. Let it be kept in a cool place until firmly set. Though this jelly will be agreeable and refreshing, it will not be as nourishing as if made from calf's feet. Time, half an hour to dissolve the isinglass. Probable cost, exclusive of the wine, 1s. 4d. Sufficient for four or five glasses.
A clear wine jelly from the invalid-cookery section, built on isinglass rather than calf's-foot stock. The measurements are imperial and the setting agent is the one thing that needs rethinking.
- Imperial measuresThree-quarters of an imperial pint is 15 fl oz, about 1 3/4 US cups; the quarter-pint of sherry is 5 fl oz. With the orange juice the finished liquid comes to roughly three cups, which matches the stated four or five glasses.
- IsinglassIsinglass is purified collagen from the swim bladders of sturgeon and other fish, sold in leaves or shreds and largely displaced by leaf and powdered gelatine. Powdered gelatine is the practical substitute, but it is much stronger by weight than isinglass, so do not match the ounce gram for gram: start with about two 7 g envelopes for this volume, bloomed in a little of the cold water first.
- Alcohol and acid weaken the setThe orange juice in particular works against gelatine, and alcohol can too. Err on the side of more gelatine rather than less, and expect a soft, spoonable jelly rather than one that will unmould.
- Add the wine off the heatThe sherry and juice go in after the isinglass solution has been strained, not while it is boiling. Prolonged heat drives off the sherry's aroma, which is the whole point of the dish.
- Clarifying and the jelly bagSkimming and the shots of cold water are for clarity: cold water chills the surface and brings the scum up in a raft. A jelly bag wrung out in hot water will not chill the liquid or absorb it; a double layer of scalded muslin in a sieve does the same job. Let it drip and do not squeeze, or the jelly clouds.
- Enamelled panThe instruction is deliberate: enamel avoids the metallic taint and dulled colour that bare iron or unlined copper can give; stainless steel is the modern equivalent.
- Setting"A cool place" meant a larder. Four hours in the refrigerator will set it; overnight is better, given the alcohol.
- Cost and yieldThe cost is given in pre-decimal currency and excludes the wine; isinglass was a costly store-cupboard item. It fills four or five small glasses, served in the glass rather than turned out.
Wine jelly was standard sickroom fare in Victorian and Edwardian households, and Cassell's places it in a run of invalid recipes where digestibility mattered more than richness. The book's closing note — that it "will not be as nourishing as if made from calf's feet" — reflects the period conviction that gelatine itself was a nourishing food, a belief that lingered long after chemists had shown gelatine to be an incomplete protein of little sustaining value. Calf's-foot jelly, made by long-boiling the feet and clarifying the stock with egg white, was the prestige version and took the better part of a day; isinglass dissolved in half an hour, before straining and setting, which is why it appears here for cooks nursing someone. Isinglass reached Britain in quantity through the Russian sturgeon trade and was valued in the kitchen and the brewery alike for the clarity it produced and for its fining power.