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Blancmange for Invalids
INGREDIENTS for large shape.-1 quart of new milk, 1½ oz. of Swinborne's isinglass, varied by add-pint of cream, sugar and flavouring to ing bay-leaves, laurel-leaves, Soak the isinglass in the milk, then boil or essence of vanilla, instead of the lemonrind and almonds. Noyeau, Maraschino, Curacoa or any favourite liqueur, added in small proportions, very much enhances the flavour of this always favourite dish. In turning it out, just loosen the edges of the blancmange from the mould, place a dish on it, and turn it quickly over; it should come out easily, and the blancmange have a smooth glossy appearance when the mould is oiled.
TIME. About 1½ hour to steep the lemonrind and almonds in the milk. SEASONABLE at any time.
A Victorian invalid blancmange: milk set with isinglass, scented with lemon rind and almonds, and turned out of an oiled mould. Two things in the flavouring list put it outside what should be made today.
- Laurel leavesIn Victorian kitchens "laurel leaves" used for flavouring were generally cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) rather than sweet bay; this recipe lists the two separately. Cherry laurel leaves release hydrogen cyanide when bruised and steeped, and the dose in an infusion is uncontrolled. Poisonings from laurel-flavoured creams and custards were reported during the period.
- NoyeauNoyeau is a liqueur flavoured with the kernels of stone fruit, historically carrying the same cyanogenic compounds as bitter almonds. A modern almond-flavoured liqueur is a different product, but the recipe as printed is not asking for one.
- Who it was forThis is invalid cookery, intended for someone ill and eating little: the reader least able to tolerate an unmeasured cyanogenic infusion. Laurel and noyeau appear as optional flavourings rather than as the base, but they are the reason to leave this version on the page. Use a current blancmange or panna cotta recipe instead.
- IsinglassSwinborne's was a branded, refined isinglass — collagen from sturgeon swim bladders, sold in sheets or shreds and dissolved by long soaking and gentle heating. Setting strength varied by grade and batch, so the 1½ oz here cannot be converted to a reliable weight of modern gelatine.
- Vessels and quantitiesA quart is 40 fluid ounces in British measure, not 32. "New milk" means fresh whole milk straight from the dairy, unhomogenised and un-skimmed; the richer variation adds half a pint of cream.
- The oiled mouldThe recipe credits the smooth, glossy surface to oiling the mould: a bare film of a neutral oil, wiped almost dry.
Blancmange began in the medieval kitchen as blanc manger, "white dish" — a pale pounded-almond and chicken preparation served to the sick as much as to the well. By Mrs Beeton's day the meat had long gone and what remained was a moulded white milk jelly, still carrying its old association with the sickroom, which is probably why it appears here in a distinct invalid version rather than among the ordinary sweets. Its setting agent marks the period precisely: isinglass, imported chiefly from Russia and prepared from sturgeon, was the fine gelatine of the nineteenth-century household, and named brands such as Swinborne's were advertised as purer and less fishy than the general run. Flavouring white creams with laurel or noyeau to give an almond note was equally of its time — apparently a familiar practice, and one that the medical press of the same decades was already warning against.