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Milk Suet
Put a pint of new milk into a stewpan over a slow fire, and add an ounce of mutton-suet cut like shavings, the rind of a quarter of a lemon, a small stick of cinnamon, and as much good white sugar as will sweeten. When the suet has dissolved, and the flavour of lemon and cinnamon is gained, it is ready. Strain and use hot. This milk is considered very nourishing and efficacious in cases of hoarseness or loss of voice. Time, half an hour or more. Probable cost, 4d.
A drink from the invalid-cookery tradition rather than the dessert table: warm spiced milk enriched with melted suet. The whole thing depends on keeping the milk below a boil and serving it before the fat can set.
- Slow fire"Over a slow fire" implies gentle heat well short of a boil; the book gives no temperature. Boiled milk skins and catches, and long hard boiling would reduce and scorch it.
- MeasuresAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, or 2 1/2 US cups. An ounce of suet is about 2 tablespoons of shavings. "As much sugar as will sweeten" is a taste judgement; a teaspoon or two is enough for most palates.
- New milk"New milk" is fresh whole milk straight from the cow, unskimmed and unhomogenised. Ordinary whole milk is the right substitute; skimmed milk defeats the purpose of the recipe, which is fat.
- Mutton suetThe hard fat from around a sheep's kidneys, once a common butcher's item and now usually a special order. Beef suet is the usual stand-in and is milder; packaged shredded suet works but often contains flour, which will cloud the milk.
- Lemon rindPare the zest thinly with a peeler and take no white pith, which turns bitter over a long infusion. A quarter of a small lemon is perhaps a two-inch strip.
- StrainingStrain while it is still hot, through a fine sieve or a scalded piece of muslin. Suet sets hard as it cools and will cling to the sides of a cold jug.
- ServingYields roughly a pint after straining, so one large cup or two small ones. It must be drunk hot; as it cools the fat rises and congeals on the surface.
- On the claimThe soothing effect is from warmth, fat and sugar coating the throat. Treat it as a comfort drink, not a treatment for anything.
Cassell's includes this among a whole class of "invalid" preparations: beef teas, arrowroot, barley water, gruels and possets designed to get calories into someone with no appetite. Nineteenth-century sickroom cookery leaned on the idea that fat and sugar were themselves strengthening, and suet was a cheap concentrated fat in a British kitchen, which is part of why it turns up in a drink at all. Warm milk with suet or butter for hoarseness belongs to a long line of folk remedies for singers and preachers, of a piece with buttered toddies and posset drinks, though the relief is soothing rather than curative. The costing of fourpence is the sort of detail Cassell's supplied throughout, aimed at a household mistress who had to account for what the sickroom consumed.