Albumenized Milk

This is a sickroom drink from the era of invalid cookery, and two of its three ingredients make it unsuitable to prepare today. The notes below explain what is in it and why it should be left on the page.

• Raw egg white, never heatedThe white goes into the shaker uncooked and the drink is served immediately, so the egg is never heated at any point. Raw shell eggs carry a real risk of Salmonella Enteritidis, and drinks of this kind were intended for the very people least able to withstand it: the sick, the elderly, small children and convalescents.
• "Lime water" is not a citrus preparationIn invalid and infant cookery of this period, lime water meant a saturated solution of calcium hydroxide (slaked lime) in water, decanted clear off the sediment. It is a strongly alkaline pharmaceutical preparation, not a flavouring, and the quantity called for here is a large proportion relative to the milk.
• Why the lime water was thereAlkali was believed to make milk curd softer and more digestible in the stomach, and lime water was a standard addition to infant and invalid milk feeds well into the twentieth century. The practice has been abandoned; modern medicine does not treat digestion this way, and calcium hydroxide solution is not something to keep in a kitchen.
• "Albumenized" explainedAlbumen is the old term for egg white, and albumenized milk simply meant milk enriched with raw white for its protein. Similar entries in the same books include albumen water, egg white beaten into plain water and given when milk could not be tolerated.
• The straining stepShaking raw white with milk leaves stringy, unbroken threads of albumen, which is presumably why the original calls for straining. It is a texture fix, not a safety measure, and it removes nothing harmful.
• If you want something like itUse a current recipe for a milk-based protein drink, built on pasteurised egg product or a commercial protein powder. Nothing in this entry should be adapted or scaled.