Eel Broth
INGREDIENTS for 1½ pint of broth. lb. of eel, a small bunch of sweet herbs, including parsley, 1/2 onion, 10 peppercorns, 3 pints of water, 2 cloves, salt and pepper to taste. AVERAGE COST, 6d.
After having cleaned and skinned the eel, cut it into small pieces, and put it into a stewpan with the other ingredients; simmer gently until the liquid is reduced to nearly half, carefully removing the scum as it rises. Strain it through a hair sieve: put it by in a cool place, and, when wanted, take off all the fat on the top; warm up as much as is required, and serve with sippets of toasted bread.
This is a very nutritious broth, and easy of digestion.
TIME. To be simmered until the liquor is reduced to half.
SEASONABLE from June to March.
An invalid's broth from the sickroom end of Beeton's repertoire: three pints of water reduced to one and a half, then chilled so the fat can be lifted off. Nothing here is difficult, but two details in the original need attention before you start.
- The quantity of eel is missingThe text reads "lb. of eel" — the fraction has dropped out of the setting. For 3 pints (1.7 litres) of water, 1 lb (450 g) of cleaned eel gives a broth with real body; half a pound gives something thin. Treat the figure as genuinely unknown rather than assume.
- Sourcing eelThe European eel (Anguilla anguilla) is now listed as critically endangered and is CITES-regulated, with trade in and out of the EU prohibited. Where it is still legally sold it is expensive and traceable; farmed Japanese or American eel, or a firm white fish carcass, is the practical substitute. Beeton's sixpence reflected a fish that was then commonplace in London.
- Eel bloodRaw eel serum contains a protein toxin that irritates the mouth and eyes, which is why eel is never eaten raw. Prolonged simmering destroys it completely, so the broth is fine; just rinse the cut pieces and wash your hands and board after handling.
- The hinge: skim, do not boil"Simmer gently... carefully removing the scum as it rises" is the whole method. A rolling boil emulsifies the fat and albumin back into the liquid and you lose the clarity the recipe is built on. Keep it at a bare tremble.
- TimingReducing 3 pints to about 1½ over a low flame takes roughly 1 to 1½ hours in an uncovered pan. Judge by the level in the pan, not the clock — a wide pan reduces far faster than a tall one.
- Hair sieveA sieve of woven horsehair, the Victorian fine strainer. Use a fine-mesh sieve lined with a double layer of muslin or a coffee filter cloth.
- "Put it by in a cool place"Meaning a larder, in a kitchen without refrigeration. Chill it in the refrigerator instead, lift the set fat cap off the top, and use within two days or freeze. Reheat only the portion you want, brought fully to a simmer.
- SippetsSmall triangles or cubes of toasted or fried bread, cut about an inch across and added at the table so they do not go soft. Modern croutons in all but name.
- Yield1½ pints (about 850 ml) — two generous invalid servings or three small cups.
Eel broth belongs to Beeton's substantial body of "cookery for invalids", a category that occupied serious space in nineteenth-century household manuals because feeding the sick at home was a domestic duty rather than a hospital's. The claim that it is "very nutritious and easy of digestion" reflects the period's confidence in gelatinous, fatty fish broths as restoratives, and eel was the obvious candidate: cheap, sold live from tubs by London fishmongers and street stalls, and famously long-keeping out of water. Thames and imported Dutch eels underpinned a whole working-class London food culture of eel pie, stewed eels and jellied eels, which is why sixpence buys the makings of a pint and a half of broth here. The reversal since is striking — the fish that once fed the poor and the convalescent is now a protected, tightly traded luxury, with recruitment of young eels to European waters estimated to have fallen by around ninety per cent or more since the 1980s.