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Instantaneous Eggnogg
Beat two eggs until very light, then add two and one half tablespoonfuls of sugar, a pinch of salt, one and one half teaspoonfuls instantaneous coffee, and three cups of milk. Strain and chill. This will serve four people.
A four-ingredient cold drink whose entire method is beat, strain, chill — which is exactly the problem. The notes below explain what has changed since it was printed.
- Raw egg, never heatedNothing in this recipe brings the eggs above room temperature, and the finished drink is then held cold rather than cooked. Shell eggs can carry Salmonella both on the shell and inside, and there is no step here that would reduce it.
- Chilling is not a kill stepRefrigeration only slows bacterial growth; it does not make a raw egg safe. A pitcher of egg and milk sitting in the cold, then poured over an afternoon, is a growing medium rather than a preserved one. A current cooked-custard eggnog recipe should be used instead.
- Who is most at riskRaw-egg drinks are specifically hazardous for young children, pregnant women, older adults and anyone immunocompromised — which is much of the audience a household beverage like this was aimed at.
- "Instantaneous coffee"This means soluble instant coffee powder, sold in the 1910s and 20s under names such as G. Washington's. Its strength by volume need not match that of modern instant granules, so period measurements may not translate directly; taste as you go.
- Milk then and nowSome milk in 1919 was still unpasteurized, though pasteurization was already required in many American cities by then. Either way, the raw egg risk remains.
- Why it is strainedStraining removes the ropy bits of albumen and chalazae that beating will not break down. It is a texture step only, and does nothing for safety.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the wave of American recipe books published around the arrival of national Prohibition, when "water wagon" was common slang for having given up drink. Its purpose was to supply hostesses with something to pour, and its egg drinks lean on the older medicinal tradition of the egg flip or nog — beaten egg, sugar and milk, taken as a strengthening food-drink for invalids and children long before it became a Christmas punch. The spirit is simply left out; the eggs and milk were presumably regarded as the nourishing part. Instant coffee helps date the recipe: soluble coffee had been commercialized in the United States in the years before the First World War and was issued to American troops, which may be why a 1919 household book can call for it without explanation.