Home › Orange and Pineapple › Hot Orange
Hot Orange
Shake well together one egg, juice of half an orange, and two teaspoonfuls of powdered sugar. Strain into a glass and add hot water and nutmeg.
This is a temperance version of a hot egg flip: a whole raw egg shaken with citrus and sugar, then let down with hot water. The hot water is the entire cooking step, and it is not enough.
- The egg is never brought to a safe temperatureA single egg diluted into a glass of hot tap-kettle water lands somewhere in the range of a warm bath, not the 160F needed to kill Salmonella. Nothing later in the recipe raises it. If you want a hot egg drink, use a current recipe built on pasteurized eggs or a cooked custard base.
- Straining is not a safety stepThe strainer most likely catches the chalazae and any unbroken albumen so the drink pours clear, though the recipe does not say. Either way it removes texture, not pathogens.
- Why the acid does not helpHalf an orange's juice is often assumed to "cook" the egg the way ceviche appears to. Acid at this dilution denatures very little protein and does not reliably reduce bacterial load.
- Powdered sugarIn this period the term usually means sugar ground fine, closer to today's superfine or caster sugar than to the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold under that name now. Two teaspoonfuls is a modest sweetening for one glass.
- NutmegBest grated fresh over the top at the last moment. Pre-ground nutmeg loses much of its aroma in storage and will read as dusty rather than warm.
- YieldOne glass. The recipe does not specify how much hot water, so the final volume is up to the maker.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the flood of alcohol-free drink books published around the arrival of national Prohibition, when bartenders' standards had to be rebuilt without spirits. Hot flips and egg nogs were among the hardest to replace, because the egg, sugar and spice carried much of the pleasure while the brandy or rum carried the rest; some temperance manuals simply dropped the liquor and let hot water stand in, as here. The egg drink itself is far older than the temperance movement, descending from the posset and the caudle, warm restorative mixtures of egg, sweetening and something acidic or alcoholic that were given to invalids and to people coming in from the cold. The pairing with orange rather than wine or ale may reflect the period's growing supply of Florida and California citrus.