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Invalids, Lemonade for
IN.
GREDIENTS for 1 pint of lemonade. lemon, lump sugar to taste, 1 pint of boiling water. AVERAGE COST, 1d. Pare off the rind of the lemon thinly; ITALIAN CREAM. cut the lemon into 2 or 3 thick slices, and remove as much as possible of the white outside pith and all the pips. Put the slices of lemon, the peel and lump sugar into a jug; pour over the boiling water, cover it closely, and in 2 hours it will be fit to drink. It should either be strained or poured off from the sediment.
TIME.-2 hours.
SEASONABLE at any time.
A cold-infusion lemonade meant for the sickroom: no boiling of the fruit, no acid sharpness from squeezed juice, just steeped rind and slices. It is closer to a lemon tisane than to modern lemonade.
- QuantitiesOne lemon to a pint (20 fl oz British, so about 2 1/2 US cups) of boiling water. The sugar is left entirely "to taste"; the recipe gives no quantity.
- The hinge: remove the pithPare the rind thinly so you take the coloured zest and none of the white, then cut away the pith from the slices. Pith left in for a two-hour steep turns the drink bitter, which is the whole reason for the fussy instruction.
- Pips outLemon seeds release bitterness during a long infusion. Fish out every one before the water goes on.
- Lump sugarLoaf sugar broken into lumps. Ordinary granulated or caster sugar will serve here; the recipe has the sugar go into the jug before the water, so it dissolves in the heat.
- Cover it closelyA lid or plate over the jug keeps the volatile oils from the zest in the liquid rather than in the air. This is most of the flavour.
- Timing and servingTwo hours is the steep, not a cooking time. Strain or decant off the sediment, then serve at room temperature or chilled; a pint makes two generous glasses.
Lemonade for invalids belongs to a whole class of Victorian sickroom drinks — barley water, toast water, whey, blackcurrant tea — that a household was expected to produce without troubling a doctor. The logic was that a feverish patient needed fluid and a little sugar, and that anything sharp or heavy would sit badly, so the lemon is infused rather than squeezed and the result is fragrant and faintly sweet rather than tart. A penny a pint put this within reach of most households keeping Mrs Beeton's book, and the recipe's placement among invalid cookery reflects a period in which nursing the sick at home was squarely the mistress of the house's work.