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Posset, Wine
Grate finely the crumb of a stale roll, and put it into a saucepan with a pint of water and two large lumps of sugar which have been rubbed upon the rind of a Seville orange until the yellow part has been taken off. Let the mixture simmer until it is thick and clear, then add a pint of light wine, two ounces of sweet almonds, and six bitter ones blanched and pounded, half the juice of the Seville orange, and sugar to taste. Mix thoroughly, and serve. Time, about half an hour. Probable cost, 6d., exclusive of the wine.
This is a curdled-free, bread-thickened wine posset of the older English type, and one ingredient rules it out entirely. The notes below explain the problem rather than offering a way around it.
- The six bitter almondsBitter almonds contain amygdalin, which releases hydrogen cyanide when the kernel is crushed and wetted — exactly what pounding them into a warm liquid does. Six kernels are enough to matter: reported symptom thresholds for adults fall in this region, and the margin is narrower for a child or an elderly drinker.
- Nothing here destroys the cyanideThe almonds go in after the bread and water have finished simmering, and the mixture is only mixed and served. There is no prolonged boiling and no venting step, so the hydrogen cyanide formed in the drink stays in the drink.
- Not a substitution problemBitter almond kernels are not sold for eating in the United States and are restricted elsewhere; the almond flavour they supplied is now sold as almond extract, based on benzaldehyde and free from prussic acid. Any modern rendering of the flavour is a different preparation from the one written here, so use a current recipe rather than adapting this one.
- Seville orangeThe bitter marmalade orange, in season only in midwinter. Rubbing sugar lumps on the zest was a common way of taking up the oil from the rind, and it is the one technique on this page worth borrowing for other recipes.
- "Light wine"Read as a thin, unfortified white rather than a fortified wine; the recipe does not specify further, and prices the dish "exclusive of the wine."
The posset is one of the oldest English drinks still named in cookery books: hot milk or wine, curdled or thickened, spiced and sweetened, taken at bedtime and pressed on anyone with a cold. By the later nineteenth century it had slipped from a social drink towards a sickroom one. The bread-crumb thickening is the older method, predating arrowroot and cornflour, and grating stale bread into simmering liquid was a common way to give body to a caudle, gruel or wine broth. Bitter almonds were a routine flavouring in the same period — they gave the marzipan and ratafia note that almond extract supplies today.