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Lemon Honey
To the juice of two lemons add one pint of sugar and one-half pint of water. Cook until thick.
PICKLED LEMONS (Helen Harcourt) Quarter the lemons, cutting not quite through rind at base (so that the quarters will remain attached) and place in each one teaspoon of salt. Put them in the sun or near stove where they will get a steady but slow, moderate heat. Leave them until they look black and dried, then place in the jars in which they are to be sealed. Pour over them boiling vinegar to which has been added spice to taste, including a little chopped onion, white mustard seed, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon. As pickled lemons will swell to their original size in the vinegar more of the latter must be added than for the usual pickle. These should be put up a twelvemonth before using.
SIMPLE LEMON CUSTARD (Without Lemon Juice) To one quart of boiling milk (in double boiler), add onehalf teaspoon salt, one-half cup sugar, rind of two lemons, grated, and, last, one heaping tablespoon cornstarch which has been dissolved in a little cold water or milk. Now stir in lightly one egg (beaten separately), first the yolk and then-very lightly indeed-the stiff-whipped white, and immediately remove from the stove. When cool place on ice. This is delicate and refreshing and much more acceptable to many than where the lemon juice is used. LEMON "CUSTARD" (With Lemon Juice) To one quart of boiling water add one tablespoon of butter, one cup of sugar, two heaping teaspoons of cornstarch (dissolved in cold water), and the grated rind and juice of two lemons. Beat three eggs separately and add the yolks to the above. If the pudding is to be baked it should be removed at this stage from the fire and poured into the baking-dish, remaining in the oven until the custard is set, when a meringue made of the whipped whites of the eggs and two tablespoonfuls of sugar is to be poured over the top and browned. The pudding is equally delicious not baked, however. In this case the whipped whites should be lightly beaten in on being removed from the stove and when somewhat cool, poured into a glass dish and later set on ice. Serve with cream or wine sauce. EGGLESS LEMON PIE OR PUDDING (A Novelty) To the juice and grated rind of two lemons add one cup each of cold water, sugar, and grated, raw, Irish potato. When used as a pie bake with upper crust only. As a pudding use no crust but sprinkle with sugar and bits of butter and when baked serve with cream.
Five separate lemon preparations run together under one heading. Read them as a group of short recipes rather than one long method, and note that the measurements are volume-based throughout.
- Lemon honey is a syrup, not a curdDespite the name there is no egg or butter here — juice of two lemons, a pint (2 cups) of sugar, half a pint (1 cup) of water, boiled down. "Cook until thick" is the only guide the recipe gives; cook until the syrup coats a spoon, and expect it to thicken further as it cools.
- A pint of sugarSugar was commonly measured by volume in these books. A pint is 2 cups, about 14 oz; the half pint of water is 1 cup.
- Pickled lemons: acid is what preserves themThe salt-and-sun drying draws out moisture and the straight boiling vinegar supplies the acidity, which is why this keeps. The recipe gives no processing time and no jar sterilising, so treat the sealed jars as a refrigerator pickle rather than a shelf-stable canned good, and follow a current tested procedure if you want them stored at room temperature for the full twelvemonth.
- White mustard seedThis is the pale yellow mustard seed sold today as yellow mustard seed, milder than brown. Use whole cloves, a cinnamon stick and whole spices where you can; ground spice will cloud the vinegar.
- Eggs in the two custardsBoth are cornstarch puddings stiffened with egg rather than true stirred custards. In the first, the quart of milk is at or near boiling when the egg goes in, which is enough to set it; work quickly and off the heat once the white is folded, or it will curdle into threads.
- Baking the lemon "custard" puddingNo temperature is given, and the recipe uses no oven term at all. A moderate oven, around 350F, is a reasonable modern choice; bake until the centre barely trembles, then add the meringue and return it just long enough to colour.
- Irish potatoSimply an ordinary white potato, as distinct from a sweet potato. Grated raw, it supplies starch that sets the filling, standing in for the eggs; grate it directly into the lemon juice so it does not brown, and expect a texture closer to a chess pie than a lemon meringue.
- Wine sauceA period sauce of sugar, butter and a fortified wine such as sherry or Madeira, thickened lightly and served warm over the cold pudding. Plain cream works as well and is the recipe's own first suggestion.
"Lemon honey" is an old British and American name for a thick lemon preserve, applied loosely to both the egg-and-butter curd and, as here, to a plain boiled syrup used as a spread or sauce; the name is often said to record the colour and consistency rather than any honey in the pot. The pickled lemons are credited to Helen Harcourt, a name associated with late nineteenth-century Florida horticultural writing, and the method — quartering, salting, drying in the sun, then covering with spiced vinegar — is a Western cousin of the salt-preserved lemons of North Africa and the lemon pickles of India. The eggless pie is the most telling entry: grated raw potato standing in for eggs marks this as a thrift recipe, the sort of substitution that circulated whenever eggs were dear or scarce, and its billing as "a novelty" suggests the compiler expected readers to be surprised it worked at all.