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WHEY, IRISH (an excellent drink in cases of fever)
Put two-thirds of a pint of sweet milk into a saucepan, let it boil, and then stir into it a third of a pint of fresh buttermilk. Gently stir the mixture round, and let it boil up. Pour it out, let it settle, and strain off the whey. In Ireland milk is generally turned in the manner described. The whey possesses a slight acidity which is very agreeable: it is of a perfectly clear greenish hue. It is often called two-milk whey.
A two-ingredient drink that hinges entirely on acid meeting hot milk. The only real difficulty for a modern cook is that the buttermilk in the shops is not the buttermilk this recipe assumes.
- The pint is imperialCassell's is a British book, so a pint is 20 fl oz. Two-thirds of a pint is about 13 fl oz (380 ml) of milk, and a third is about 7 fl oz (190 ml) of buttermilk.
- Buttermilk has changedThe original means the sour liquid drained from churned butter, thin and sharply acidic. Modern cultured buttermilk is a reasonable substitute and will curdle hot milk in the same way, but check that it tastes properly tart; some supermarket versions are mild enough to give a weak set.
- Do not stir hardThe instruction to stir gently and let it boil up once is the whole method. Vigorous stirring breaks the curd into fine crumbs that clog the strainer and cloud the whey.
- Let it settle before strainingTake the pan off the heat and leave it five to ten minutes undisturbed. The curd knits together and the whey drops clear; strain too soon and you get a milky liquid rather than the clear greenish drink described.
- StrainingThe original says only to strain it off; a fine sieve lined with muslin or a coffee filter will serve. Let it drip rather than pressing the curd.
- YieldA generous invalid's glassful, though how much whey you get depends on how thoroughly the curd drains. The drained curd is edible, close to a fresh soft cheese, and can be salted and eaten rather than thrown out.
- ServingThe original says nothing about how it was served or sweetened. It is pleasant warm or chilled, faintly sour and salty. It keeps a day or two refrigerated and no longer.
Whey drinks run through nineteenth-century cookery books as sickroom fare, part of a long tradition in which the thin liquid left from cheesemaking was considered cooling, mildly nourishing and easy on a fevered stomach. "Two-milk whey" is the plain descriptive name: sweet milk turned with sour, as against the wine whey, ale whey and mustard whey that fill the same pages and rely on other agents to break the curd. That Ireland is named as the source reflects a dairying economy where buttermilk was an everyday by-product of home churning rather than something bought. Whey was understood less as a drink than as a medical preparation, of a piece with the beef teas and barley waters a Victorian household was expected to know how to make without calling a doctor.