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Prunes, Tisane of, for Irritation of the Throat
This simple beverage, if sipped in small quantities at intervals, will greatly relieve irritation of the vocal organs. If it is too sweet to be agreeable it may be diluted with water, or even sharpened with strained lemon-juice. Boil half a pound of prunes in a quart of water for three-quarters of an hour, and keep up the quantity of the liquor by adding a little fresh water occasionally. Pour off the liquor, and when cold it is ready for use. Few children will refuse to eat the prunes after they have been boiled. Probable cost of prunes, 4d. to 1s. per pound. Sufficient for a quart of liquor.
A sickroom drink rather than a dessert: sweetened prune water, sipped cool through the day. It needs almost nothing in the way of translation, but a few details are worth setting straight.
- Quantities in modern termsHalf a pound is about 225 g of dried prunes. The quart is an imperial one, 40 fl oz or about 1.14 litres; a US quart of 32 fl oz would give a stronger, sweeter liquor, though the recipe's own suggestion of dilution would cover that.
- The hinge: keep topping up the waterThree-quarters of an hour at a boil will drive off a good deal of liquid. Adding fresh water as it goes is what keeps the finished tisane light enough to drink by the glass rather than reducing to a syrup.
- A bare simmer is enoughA hard rolling boil for 45 minutes breaks the fruit down into cloudy pulp and makes straining tedious. A gentle simmer, covered, extracts just as much and leaves the prunes whole enough to eat afterwards.
- StrainingThe original says only to pour off the liquor. Passing it through a fine sieve or muslin gives a clearer drink that is pleasanter to sip, which is the whole point of the preparation.
- No added sugarAll the sweetness comes from the fruit. Modern prunes may well be plumper and sweeter than those Cassell's readers bought, in which case the liquor will be heavier. The suggested lemon juice cuts it well; start with the juice of half a lemon per quart.
- Keeping itThe recipe says only to pour off the liquor and use it when cold; it gives no keeping instructions. Unsweetened fruit water spoils quickly at room temperature: refrigerate it and use within two or three days.
- Yield and a caveatAbout a quart, meant to be taken in small glasses over a day. Prunes are a well-known laxative and the cooking liquor carries that effect, so a whole quart drunk quickly by one person is a poor idea, particularly for the children the recipe mentions.
A tisane is simply an infusion drunk for its supposed medicinal effect, and Victorian cookery books carried dozens of them alongside their soups and puddings, because the kitchen was where the sickroom was catered for. Barley water, linseed tea, blackcurrant tea and prune water were the standard soothing drinks for a raw throat. Prunes themselves were a cheap and universal store cupboard item, imported dried in quantity from France and California, and a price range of fourpence to a shilling a pound is quoted here. The final line about children eating the boiled fruit is characteristic of the book's thrift: nothing that had been paid for was to be thrown away.