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Caudle
Boil for twenty minutes two tablespoonfuls of oatmeal in a quart of water. Put in a blade of mace and a bit of lemon peel. Stir frequently. Strain and sweeten, and season with nutmeg and a little lemon peel.
A thin oatmeal gruel, strained and aromatic, from the era when the sickroom had its own short list of drinks. It is straightforward to make; the only real decisions are the oats you use and how far you strain it.
- Which oatmeal'Oatmeal' here would have meant pinhead or coarse-cut meal rather than the rolled oats of later kitchens. Steel-cut oats are the closest modern stand-in and will soften over twenty minutes of simmering; rolled oats break down faster and produce a cloudier, pastier liquid, and quick oats will turn to sludge.
- A blade of maceMace is the lacy outer covering of the nutmeg seed, and a "blade" is one dried piece of it, roughly the size of a thumbnail. If you only have ground mace, about an eighth of a teaspoon stands in, though it will not strain out cleanly.
- Lemon peelPare the yellow zest only, in wide strips, and leave the white pith behind or the drink turns bitter over twenty minutes of boiling. The second addition of peel at the end is for aroma, so add it fresh rather than reusing the boiled strip.
- Stirring is not optionalTwo tablespoons of oatmeal in a quart of water will still settle and catch on the bottom of the pan. Keep the heat low enough for a bare simmer and stir every few minutes; scorched oatmeal cannot be strained out.
- StrainingA fine sieve gives a drinkable liquid with some body; a doubled square of muslin gives a clearer, thinner result. Press the solids gently rather than forcing them through, which reintroduces the starch you just removed.
- SweeteningNo quantity is given. Sugar or honey to taste, starting around a tablespoon for the whole quart, and add it while the liquid is hot so it dissolves.
- Yield and servingSome liquid is lost to twenty minutes of boiling and to the strained solids, so expect rather less than the starting quart -- three to four small cupfuls. Serve warm; on standing it will thicken and settle, so stir or gently reheat before pouring.
Caudle is one of the oldest drinks in English domestic cookery, the name traced through Anglo-Norman caudel to the Latin calidus, hot. For centuries it meant a warm, sweetened, spiced gruel or thin egg drink laced with wine or ale, given to the sick, to women after childbirth, and to guests at christenings. What makes this version worth noticing is what is missing: the wine, leaving oatmeal, mace, lemon and sugar to do the whole job. The oatmeal base itself is the older and plainer tradition, close to the gruels and water-gruels that fed invalids and the poor alike, and mace and lemon peel are often said to have been common sickroom aromatics of the nineteenth century, thought to settle the stomach and, more practically, to make a bland drink palatable.