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Lemonade
Boil a quart of water with three-quarters of a pound of loaf sugar, and pour the syrup over the rind of six lemons. Let them soak for two or three hours. Add the strained juice of the lemons and two quarts of water. Pass the whole through a jelly-bag, and serve in glass jugs. Probable cost, 10d. Sufficient for seven pints of lemonade.
A syrup-and-oil method rather than a simple stir-together: the hot syrup draws the aromatic oil out of the peel, which is where most of the flavour lives. Everything else is arithmetic.
- The hinge is the peelPare the rind in strips with a peeler, taking no white pith, and pour the syrup over it while it is still hot. The pith turns the finished drink bitter after a two-hour soak.
- Quarts and pintsCassell's measures are imperial: a quart is 40 fl oz (1.14 L), not the US 32 oz. The full batch is roughly 3.4 litres of water plus the juice.
- Loaf sugarRefined white sugar sold as a hard cone and broken up with nippers. Ordinary granulated sugar is the same thing; three-quarters of a pound is about 1 2/3 cups.
- Jelly-bagA conical flannel or muslin bag used for straining jellies. A fine sieve lined with damp muslin or a coffee filter does the same job; the point is to catch peel fragments and pulp so the jug looks clear.
- Lemons have shrunk and sweetenedLemons vary -- Victorian lemons may well have been smaller and sharper than much supermarket fruit, though this is a guess rather than a measured comparison. Taste before straining and add juice or a little more sugar; unwaxed lemons are worth buying since the rind is doing the work.
- Yield and servingSeven imperial pints is close to 4 litres, enough for about sixteen tumblers. Chill it rather than adding ice to the batch, which dilutes what is already a fairly light syrup.
- KeepingNo preservative beyond sugar and acid, so treat it as fresh juice: refrigerate and drink within two or three days.
Lemonade in the English sense — juice, sugar and still water — was a summer and sickroom staple long before carbonated versions took the name, and Cassell's places it among the plain preparations any household could manage. The syrup-over-peel technique shares its logic with lemon shrubs, punches and the older "lemon sherbet" powders, all of which recognise that the volatile oil in the zest carries more perfume than the juice does. The costing, ten pence for seven pints, is characteristic of the *Dictionary*, which priced almost every entry so a cook could judge whether a dish suited the household's means.