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Toast and Water
Toast a small slice of stale bread (crusty bread is the best) till it is brightly browned all over without being in the least burnt. Pour over it a quart of boiling water, and let it stand till cold. Filter it, and put it into a decanter. If the toast-water is quickly wanted, just cover the bread with boiling water, and when that is cold, add as much cold filtered water as will fill the jug. Toast-water should be quite cold before it is presented to an invalid, as it is by no means an agreeable beverage when taken lukewarm or hot. Time to soak, half an hour.
A sickroom drink rather than a beverage of pleasure: bread toasted dark, steeped in boiling water, strained and chilled. The whole thing turns on the colour of the toast.
- The hinge: brown, never blackThe flavour comes from the browning of the toasted bread, so toast it to a deep, even brown; the recipe is explicit that it must not be burnt "in the least," and a scorched patch will carry bitterness into the whole quart.
- A quartTwo pints; in this British book an imperial quart, about 1.1 litres. The recipe calls for a small slice of dry, crusty bread for that volume.
- "Stale" is deliberateDry, day-old bread toasts more evenly; the recipe adds that crusty bread is best, which suggests a firm loaf rather than a soft one.
- FilteringThe recipe says only to filter it. A coffee filter or a fine sieve lined with muslin gives a clear liquid; a coarse strainer leaves sediment that settles in the decanter.
- Two conflicting timesThe method says to leave it until cold, while the time line says half an hour; a quart will usually take longer than that to cool. Steeping until cold follows the method as written.
- Keep it cold and keep it brieflyChill thoroughly before serving, as the text insists. This is bread steeped in water with no acid, sugar or alcohol to protect it, so refrigerate and use within a day.
- YieldAbout four glasses. It is a plain drink; some period versions of toast water add a strip of lemon peel, though this recipe does not.
Toast and water belonged to the nineteenth-century sickroom rather than the dining table, and appears in Cassell's among the invalid drinks. Boiled water was safer water in an era of uncertain urban supply, and the toast gave a faintly malty colour and taste that made plain boiled water easier to swallow for someone with no appetite. The name is entirely literal: nothing is being cooked, only the browned crust being infused.