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Sippets for Invalids
Cut a slice of stale bread. Toast it on both sides to a bright brown colour; cut it into small shapes, and lay these side by side on a dish. Pour upon them as much strong beef, mutton, or veal gravy, perfectly freed from fat, as they will absorb. Sprinkle a little salt over, and serve. Sippets thus simply prepared are often enjoyed by invalids who cannot partake of fresh meat.
A sickroom dish of toast and meat broth, and one that lives or dies on the quality of the gravy. Everything else is technique you already have.
- What a sippet isA sippet is a small piece of toast or fried bread cut for dipping in liquid; the name is usually explained as a diminutive of "sop". Here they are cut into small shapes after toasting, not before, though the recipe does not say what shape.
- The gravy is the dish"Strong gravy" means concentrated meat stock reduced until it has real body, not a thickened flour sauce. A weak stock leaves you with wet toast; reduce until the flavour is assertive, since a spoonful is all an invalid will take.
- Skim it cold"Perfectly freed from fat" is the hinge. Chill the gravy so the fat sets and lift it off in a sheet — fat was generally regarded in the period as hard for invalids to digest, and in any case it makes the toast greasy.
- Toast dark, not pale"Bright brown" is a deliberate stage: a well-browned surface holds its structure under liquid, where pale toast collapses. Stale bread is specified for the same reason — the drier crumb absorbs without going to paste.
- Pour only what it will take"As much as they will absorb" means the sippets should be saturated but not swimming. Add the hot gravy a spoonful at a time and stop when the pieces stop drinking it in.
- Serve at onceThere is no holding this dish. Assemble it as it goes to the table, on a warmed plate, or the toast slumps.
- YieldOne slice of bread makes a single invalid's portion; the recipe gives no quantity of gravy, so pour only as much as the toast will take. Salt is the only seasoning given.
Nineteenth-century cookery books commonly carried a section of "invalid cookery": the sickroom was managed at home, often for weeks, and the cook was expected to produce small, bland, nourishing dishes on demand. Sippets belong to the old English family of sops or or gravy long before it became convalescent food; the word appears in English from the sixteenth century, and is generally traced to "sop" as a diminutive. The logic behind offering it to the sick was the period's belief that meat juices carried the nourishment of the flesh while the fibre carried the difficulty, so a patient who "cannot partake of fresh meat" could still be fed on concentrated gravy. That reasoning underpinned a whole class of Victorian sickroom preparations, from beef tea to meat essences, and it explains why this recipe insists so firmly that the gravy be strong and the fat entirely removed.