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POSSET, CORNFLOUR (for a cold)
Mix a quarter of a pint of sherry gradually and smoothly with half an ounce of cornflour. Add one ounce and a half of pure honey and two cloves, and put the mixture into a saucepan. Stir over a gentle fire for four or five minutes, strain, and drink the posset warm the last thing at night. Probable cost, 3d., exclusive of the wine. Sufficient for one person.
A single-serving medicinal nightcap that thickens sherry with cornflour rather than curdling milk. It comes together in five minutes, but the starch and the heat both need watching.
- The measuresA quarter of a pint imperial is 5 fl oz, a scant 2/3 cup. Half an ounce of cornflour (cornstarch) is about 2 tablespoons; an ounce and a half of honey is about 2 tablespoons as well.
- Cornflour is cornstarchBritish cornflour is the fine white starch sold in the US as cornstarch, not cornmeal. Slake it into the cold sherry first, as directed, or it will seize into lumps the moment it meets heat.
- The hinge: get it to a simmerCornstarch does not thicken properly or lose its raw, chalky taste until it reaches near-boiling. "A gentle fire for four or five minutes" means bringing it slowly up until it thickens and turns glossy, then holding it briefly, not keeping it lukewarm.
- Don't overcook it eitherProlonged boiling, and the acidity of the wine, both break cornstarch down and the posset will thin again. Once it has thickened, take it off the heat.
- Strain for the clovesThe straining step exists only to catch the two whole cloves and any lumps. A tea strainer is enough.
- The alcohol stays inFive minutes below the boil drives off very little of the sherry. This is a stiff drink of about 5 fl oz of fortified wine, not a children's remedy, whatever "for a cold" suggests.
- Sherry to useA medium or cream sherry suits the honey; a dry fino will taste thin and sour once thickened. Cooking sherry is salted and will ruin it.
- YieldOne serving, as stated: about 5 fl oz. It sets further as it cools, so drink it warm rather than reheating.
A posset was originally hot milk curdled with wine or ale, spiced and sweetened, drunk in England from at least the fifteenth century as both a comfort and a remedy; Shakespeare's audiences knew it well enough for Lady Macbeth to drug one. By the time Cassell's was compiling its dictionary in the later nineteenth century, the word seems to have loosened to cover warm spiced wine or milk drinks taken at bedtime for a cold, and this version has dropped the milk entirely, using cornflour to give the body that curd once provided. Cornflour itself was a relatively new convenience then, manufactured in Britain from the mid-nineteenth century and marketed hard as a wholesome invalid food, which is why it turns up so often in the sickroom pages of Victorian cookery books. The costing of threepence "exclusive of the wine" is characteristic of Cassell's, which priced nearly every entry for the household accounts.