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Plum Beverage, French, for Invalids
Take half a dozen fine French plums. Put them into a stewpan with a pint of boiling water, and let them simmer gently for twenty minutes. Pour them into a bowl. When cold take out the plums (which may be put aside for eating), sweeten the liquid according to taste, stir into it a table-spoonful of port, and it is ready for use. Probable cost, 8d. Sufficient for one person.
A simple prune tisane from the era's invalid cookery, in which drinks were as carefully costed and portioned as dinners. The whole point is the infusion, not the fruit.
- "French plums" are prunesThe term meant dried plums imported from France, often sold whole and unpitted. Six good-sized prunes to a pint of water matches the recipe; ordinary pitted supermarket prunes work, though they give a slightly thinner liquid.
- StewpanAny small saucepan. A pint here is the British Imperial pint, 20 fl oz or about 2 1/2 US cups.
- Simmer, do not boilTwenty minutes at a bare tremble draws out the sugars and colour without breaking the fruit into pulp, which would leave the drink cloudy and hard to strain. Keep the lid on to limit reduction.
- Cooling mattersThe recipe has you cool the whole thing before removing the fruit. Strain through a fine sieve or muslin if you want a clear beverage.
- SweeteningPrunes are already sweet; start with a teaspoon of sugar or honey in the whole pint and taste. A squeeze of lemon does more for it than extra sugar.
- The portA tablespoon of port in a pint is a flavouring, not a fortification, but the alcohol is uncooked since it goes in at the end. Leave it out for children or anyone avoiding alcohol and the drink still stands.
- Yield and servingOne pint, described only as "sufficient for one person." Serve cool; it should keep two or three days covered in the refrigerator. The reserved prunes are good on their own or with cream.
Invalid cookery had its own chapter in nearly every large Victorian household manual, Cassell's included, because nursing the sick was domestic work and the diet of a convalescent was thought to need careful, bland, easily swallowed nourishment. Prune infusions belong to that tradition twice over: they were mild and palatable, and dried plums were long valued as a gentle laxative for patients confined to bed. "French plums" on a British grocer's shelf meant dried plums imported from France, the Agen district of the south-west being among the best-known sources of the export trade. The costing of 8d. and the note "sufficient for one person" are typical of the book's format, aimed at a housekeeper who had to account for every shilling; the spoonful of port is the small luxury that the period considered restorative in itself.