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Tapioca Jelly
One-half cup of tapioca, two cups of water, one-half cup of sugar, juice and rind of one-half lemon. Cook the tapioca in the water for one hour, using a double boiler. At the end of that time add the lemon and sugar, and three teaspoons of brandy. Strain and serve cold with milk. This is one of the few things for the sick of which enough can be prepared for several meals.
A soft, spoonable tapioca set with lemon, from the sickroom chapter. The one thing to know before starting is that the tapioca of 1900 was hard pearl or flake starch that needed a long soak and an hour of gentle heat; quick-cooking tapioca will turn to paste in a fraction of that time.
- Which tapiocaUse small pearl tapioca, not instant or minute tapioca. Soaking the half cup in the two cups of water for an hour or more before heating will help older-style pearls cook through, though the recipe itself does not call for it.
- The double boiler is not optionalTapioca starch scorches and sticks over direct heat, and the recipe's hour of cooking assumes water-bath temperature. Keep the lower pan at a bare simmer and stir occasionally.
- Lemon rindPare the rind in strips with a peeler, taking no white pith, and add it with the sugar so it steeps rather than cooks. It is lifted out at the straining stage.
- StrainingPressing the mixture through a sieve breaks up any unswollen pearls and gives the smooth, translucent "jelly" texture the name promises. Strain while hot; it stiffens as it cools.
- The brandyA small measure of spirit was common in invalid cookery of the period and is entirely a matter of preference now. The recipe adds it at the end of cooking, so most of it remains in the finished dish; omit it without adjusting anything else.
- Consistency and settingThis sets to a loose, quivering jelly, not a firm mould. Chill until thoroughly cold; if it stiffens too much in the refrigerator, slacken it with a little milk before serving.
- Yield and keepingAbout three cups, or four small servings. Cover the surface closely so it does not skin over, and use within two days.
- Serving"With milk" means poured over cold, as with a porridge; cream or a spoonful of stewed fruit works equally well for anyone not on a restricted diet.
Invalid cookery was a fixed chapter in nineteenth-century household manuals, written on the assumption that the sick were nursed at home and fed from the family kitchen by whoever was doing the nursing. Its dishes are bland, low in fat, easy to swallow and easy to reheat, and tapioca — a starch extracted from cassava root, imported in pearls and flakes and valued for being all but tasteless — was one of its staples, along with arrowroot, barley water and beef tea. The small measure of brandy reflects the period's routine use of spirits as a restorative, a convention that persisted in cookbooks. The closing note that enough can be made for several meals is the practical heart of the entry: most sickroom dishes had to be prepared fresh each time, and a cook with a household to run counted the labour saved.