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PANADA (Invalid Cookery)
Cut the crumb of a penny loaf into thin slices, and put these into a saucepan with as much chicken broth as will soak them. Let the panada boil, then add a little sugar and grated lemon-rind, and a glassful of light wine, if approved. Serve immediately. Time, ten minutes. Probable cost, 8d. Sufficient for one person.
A bread-and-broth invalid dish that stands or falls on the bread: it must be crumb only, and it must be cooked just long enough to fall apart into a smooth pap.
- A penny loafA small plain white loaf, though the size varied; the crumb of one might give something like 4 oz of soft interior — about three thick slices of ordinary sandwich bread with the crust cut away. Crust is deliberately excluded; it will not break down and leaves gritty flecks.
- A glassful of wineA wine glass in these books is about 2 fl oz. "Light wine" means a dry white or a light claret, not fortified wine. Add it off the heat if you want the flavour rather than the alcohol boiled off.
- How much broth"as much as will soak them" might work out at something like a cup of broth to 4 oz of crumb, added in stages. The finished panada should mound on a spoon and slump slowly, not pour.
- Ten minutes, and stirringThe book allows ten minutes; bread catches and scorches quickly, so despite the instruction to boil, keep it at a bare simmer over low heat and stir more or less continuously.
- The broth is the dishWith only bread, sugar, lemon and a splash of wine for flavour, an insipid stock gives an insipid panada. Use a well-reduced chicken stock, and season it before the bread goes in — salt does not distribute well once the mixture has thickened.
- Sugar and lemonA teaspoon of sugar and the finely grated zest of a quarter lemon is the sort of quantity meant. Grate the zest directly over the pan so the oils are not left on the board.
- YieldOne serving, as stated — about a cupful. It thickens and turns pasty as it stands, which is why the original says to serve immediately.
Panada takes its name from Latin panis, bread, by way of Italian and Spanish dishes in which bread is cooked into a broth to thicken it; the same word survives in professional kitchens for the bread-and-milk paste bound into forcemeats and quenelles. This version belongs to the branch of Victorian cookery called "invalid cookery" or "sick-room cookery," a fixture of household manuals at a time when nursing the seriously ill happened at home and the diet prescribed for fevers and convalescence ran to beef tea, arrowroot, gruel, whey and slops of this kind — soft, bland, easily swallowed, and thought to demand little of the digestion. The glass of wine was standard practice rather than indulgence: wine was widely regarded as restorative and was given to patients on medical advice, which is why so many of these recipes hedge it with "if approved," meaning if liked.