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Hot Lemon Phosphate
Shake well in a shaker, one egg, two tablespoonfuls of lemon juice, one teaspoonful of acid phosphate, two tablespoonfuls of cold water, and enough sugar to sweeten. Strain and add hot water.
A soda-fountain "hot egg phosphate," built in a shaker and lengthened with hot water. The problem is the egg: nothing in the method brings it to a safe temperature.
- The raw egg never cooksA whole egg is shaken cold with lemon juice, phosphate and water, then strained and topped with hot water. Diluting a cold egg mixture with hot water is unlikely to bring the finished glass anywhere near the 160F needed to inactivate Salmonella, and it certainly will not hold there for the minute or two it takes to drink. This is a raw-egg beverage served warm, which is the least favourable condition of all.
- Acid does not substitute for heatTwo tablespoons of lemon juice and a teaspoon of acid phosphate lower the pH but do not pasteurise anything. Acidity slows bacterial growth; it does not clear an existing contamination, and the recipe specifies no other safeguard for the egg.
- Acid phosphateA dilute solution of phosphoric acid with calcium, magnesium and potassium salts, a standard fixture at American soda fountains for its dry, mineral sourness. It has been revived by cocktail suppliers, so the ingredient itself is not the obstacle here.
- Reading the measuresTablespoons and teaspoons in a manual of this period are close enough to modern ones, and "enough sugar to sweeten" is left to the maker's judgement. The recipe makes a single glass.
- If you want the drinkUse a current recipe built on pasteurised egg product, or one that omits the egg entirely; a lemon phosphate without egg was equally standard at the fountain.
Acid phosphate was the workhorse of the American soda fountain from the 1870s onward, sold by druggist supply houses as a souring agent that gave carbonated drinks a sharpness sugar syrup could not. Egg drinks sat alongside it on the same menus, marketed less as refreshments than as nourishment for the run-down customer, and a hot version was the fountain's answer to winter trade when nobody wanted iced soda.