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Apple Water
Take six large apples and slice them, but do not peel, and pour over six cups of water. Add a quarter of a cup of sugar or honey and boil for ten minutes. Take from the fire and add the juice of one lemon. Strain and cool.
A straightforward apple infusion from the era when "invalid cookery" meant light, mild things a sick person could keep down. It works as written; a few notes will sharpen it.
- Choose a tart appleMuch of the aroma and colour comes from the skins, and the flesh supplies the acid, so use something firm and tart — Granny Smith, Bramley, a russet. A soft sweet apple tends to break down and give a cloudier, flatter drink.
- Slice thin, skins onThe instruction not to peel matters: a good deal of the aroma and most of the colour is in the skin. Thin slices in ten minutes of boiling extract more than thick wedges.
- Cores and seedsThe original says nothing about coring. Apple seeds are not a hazard in these quantities, but they can add a faint bitterness; quartering and coring first avoids that.
- Ten minutes is deliberateTen minutes is enough -- Long boiling breaks the fruit down and turns the liquid into thin sauce that will not strain clear. Keep it at a gentle boil and pull it at ten minutes even if the slices still look intact.
- Lemon off the heatAdding the juice after the pan leaves the fire keeps the fresh top note, which heat drives off. Do not be tempted to boil it in.
- SweeteningA quarter cup of sugar in six cups of water is mild by modern soft-drink standards and was meant to be. Taste after the lemon goes in and adjust then, since the acid changes how sweet it reads.
- StrainingA fine sieve gives a slightly hazy drink; a sieve lined with muslin gives a clear one. Press the fruit gently or not at all — hard pressing pushes pulp through and clouds it.
- Yield and keepingAbout five cups after boiling and straining, enough for four glasses. Refrigerate and drink within two days; there is no preservative here beyond the lemon.
"Invalid drinks" were a fixed chapter in household manuals from the mid-nineteenth century onward, when nursing the sick happened at home and the kitchen was expected to supply barley water, beef tea, toast water and fruit waters like this one. The logic was dietary rather than medicinal: a feverish patient needed fluid and a little sugar, and something with flavour was more likely to be drunk than plain water.<h/>The lemon is doing double duty, brightening the flavour and perhaps helping keep the liquid from browning as it cools, though after boiling that effect is likely to be slight.</h/>