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Lemon Sago and Tapioca
Either tapioca or sago may be used for this with delicious results, and the pudding may be made either clear and tart or creamy and sweet. If the former is preferred use water instead of milk. To one quart of cold water or milk add two large tablespoonfuls of tapioca or sago and soak for an hour, then let come to a boil on moderate fire. With the water use the juice of two large or three small lemons with the grated rind of one, and a small cup of sugar. With the milk substituted use only the grated rind (no juice). When clear, soft, and thick, remove from fire and beat in lightly the whipped whites of two eggs. When cool place on ice. It is unnecessary to add the whites of the eggs but they give a more delicate, feathery consistency.
A thin, translucent lemon pudding of the icebox era — closer to a spoonable jelly than to the stiff tapioca puddings sold today. Two details govern the result: the kind of pearl you buy, and how long you let it soak.
- Pearl, not instantBoth tapioca and sago here mean small dried pearls, which need soaking and long cooking. Instant or "minute" tapioca is pre-gelatinised and will thicken almost immediately, giving a cloudy, gluey pudding instead of the clear one described.
- SagoTrue sago is starch from the pith of the sago palm; much of what is sold as sago today is cassava starch in pearl form, effectively the same thing as tapioca. Either works, and the recipe treats them as interchangeable.
- The soak mattersAn hour in cold liquid hydrates the pearls so they cook through evenly. Skipped, the centres stay chalky and opaque no matter how long the pot simmers.
- ProportionsTwo large tablespoons to a quart is very little starch by modern standards — expect a loose, pourable pudding that sets only lightly when cold. A "small cup" of sugar is imprecise; read it as somewhat less than a modern cupful.
- Moderate fire, and stirringThe recipe brings the liquid to a boil over moderate heat; keep it no harder than a gentle simmer after that. With the milk version, use a double boiler or stir constantly over low heat; milk and sago will scorch on the bottom and the burnt taste carries through the whole quart.
- Why no lemon juice in the milk versionLemon juice would curdle the milk, which is very likely why the recipe calls for the rind only here.
- RindGrate only the coloured zest. Any white pith turns the pudding bitter, and in the clear water version there is nothing to hide it.
- Judging doneness"Clear" is the test — the pearls should be translucent all the way through, with no white speck at the centre. After the soak this may take a quarter of an hour or considerably longer, depending on the size and age of the pearls.
- The egg whitesThey are beaten into the pudding while it is still hot off the fire, which cooks them partially at best. Anyone serving the very young, elderly or immune-compromised should use pasteurised whites, or leave them out as the recipe itself allows.
- Yield and chillingA quart makes several servings. "Place on ice" — whether set over ice or put into the icebox — means chill it thoroughly before serving, and keep it covered, as the surface skins over.
Sago and tapioca reached Anglo-American kitchens as colonial imports — sago as starch from the pith of Southeast Asian sago palms, tapioca from cassava grown in Brazil and later throughout the tropics — and by the middle of the nineteenth century both were staples of the invalid tray and the nursery, valued as bland, digestible, cheap starches. Cookbooks of this period routinely list them side by side and treat them as substitutes. What lifts this version out of the sickroom is the lemon: a dull pudding becomes a tart, clear, almost jelly-like dessert when the milk is dropped and the juice of two or three lemons put in its place. The whipped whites folded in at the end, and the instruction to "place on ice," point toward the lighter, chilled desserts fashionable around the turn of the century.