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Flaxseed Lemonade
Pour one quart of boiling water over four tablespoonfuls of flaxseed, and let steep three hours. Then strain and add the juice of two lemons, with sugar to taste. More water may be added if it is too thick. This is excellent for colds.
A demulcent infusion rather than a true lemonade: the flaxseed gives the water body and a faint slipperiness, and the lemon and sugar make it drinkable. Two details decide whether it comes out pleasant or unpleasant.
- Use whole seed, not mealFlaxseed here means whole brown or golden linseed, sold in most supermarkets and health shops. Ground flaxseed or flax meal will not strain out and gives a gritty, pasty drink.
- Steep, do not simmerThe point of the three-hour steep is to draw the soluble mucilage out of the seed coat gently. Boiling the seeds for any length of time extracts far more and leaves you with something closer to wallpaper paste than a beverage.
- QuantitiesFour tablespoons of whole seed is about 1.5 oz or 40 g to one quart (about 950 ml) of boiling water. The finished yield is roughly a quart, thinned as needed.
- StrainingA fine mesh sieve alone will pass some seed fragments; a double layer of cheesecloth or a jelly bag gives a clear liquid. Do not press the seeds through, as that pushes solids into the drink.
- LemonsLemon size and acidity vary, so treat "the juice of two" as a starting point: taste and add more; the acid is what keeps the texture from reading as slimy.
- Serving and keepingServe cool or warm, whichever suits the cold it is meant for. It thickens further as it stands, so keep it covered in the refrigerator and use it within two days, thinning with water and adjusting the lemon.
Flaxseed tea, or linseed tea, was standard household medicine: the mucilage in the seed coat coats an irritated throat, which is why nineteenth-century dispensatories and domestic manuals both list it among demulcents alongside slippery elm, barley water and gum arabic. Adding lemon and sugar was the usual way of making it palatable. The claim that it is "excellent for colds" is traditional rather than proven, though the soothing effect on a raw throat is easy enough to feel.