Lemonade
INGREDIENTS for a quart of lemonade.--The rind of 2 lemons, the juice of 3 large or 4 small ones, 1/2 lb. of loaf sugar, 1 quart of boiling water. AVERAGE COST, 5d.
Rub some of the sugar, in lumps, on 2 of the lemons until they have imbibed all the oil from them and put it with the remainder of the sugar into a jug; add the lemon-juice (but no pips) and pour over the whole a quart of boiling water. When the sugar is dissolved, strain the lemonade through a fine sieve or piece of muslin and when cool it will be ready for use.
The lemonade will be much improved by having the white of an egg beaten up in it; a little sherry mixed with it also, makes this beverage much nicer.
A hot-infusion lemonade in the Victorian style, where the sugar is used as an abrasive to pull the oil out of the peel. That sugar-rubbing step is the whole point of the recipe.
- Rub the sugar, don't skip itLoaf sugar was sold in hard cones and broken into lumps, and the sharp edges scrape the zest oil out of the skin. With modern sugar, use rough sugar cubes and rub firmly until they turn yellow and damp, or substitute finely grated zest from 2 lemons stirred into granulated sugar. Without the oil the drink tastes thin and merely sour.
- Loaf sugar1/2 lb is about 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar by weight (225 g). It is a sweet lemonade by current taste; two-thirds of that amount still dissolves properly in boiling water.
- QuantitiesThe juice of 3 large lemons is roughly 1/2 to 2/3 cup. Since the water is fixed at a quart, adjust juice to taste rather than to count — supermarket lemons vary widely in acidity and size.
- Boiling waterThe heat is there to dissolve the sugar; the peel oil has already been taken up by the rubbing. Pour the water over the sugar and rind, then let it stand until the sugar has gone before straining; the juice goes in before the water, as the recipe directs, but the drink is meant to be served cold.
- Strain and chillMuslin or a fine sieve removes zest and pulp. Chill thoroughly, ideally overnight, and serve over ice. Yield is a quart, so four generous glasses.
- The white of an eggBeaten raw egg white was added to give body and a faint foam. This is uncooked egg in a cold drink; if you want the texture, use pasteurised egg white, and leave it out entirely for anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immunocompromised.
- The sherryThe recipe says only 'a little sherry'. A Victorian wineglass was reckoned at roughly 2 fl oz; a quantity of that order in a quart takes the drink closer to a shrub or a light punch than to a soft drink.
Lemonade of this kind was a household staple long before commercial bottling, and lemon and sugar in hot water was a common sickroom drink as much as a refreshment. The sugar-rubbing technique described here is the same one that produces oleo-saccharum, the sugar-and-citrus-oil base at the heart of eighteenth and nineteenth-century punch making, and it survives in bar practice today. The 5d. average cost is a reminder that lemons were an imported item priced by the piece, and that loaf sugar — refined, hard, sold in cones to be broken up with sugar nippers — was still a standard domestic form when the book was compiled; the granulated sugar in a modern cupboard will not abrade a lemon skin the same way.