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Invalid Drinks
"No further service, doctor, Until I send for three." Cymbeline. Beef Tea No. 1 Cut one pound of lean beef in small pieces. Cover with one pint of cold water, and add two level teaspoonfuls of salt. Let soak one hour. Put in a double boiler and let simmer gently. Do not let it boil. Strain and serve at once with toasted crackers.
Beef Tea No. 2 Cut a pound of lean beef in small pieces and put into a sterilized Mason jar. Add a sprig of parsley, two or three celery leaves, and salt. Pour over a pint of cold water. Screw on the top and put into a kettle of lukewarm water, and let it come gradually to a boil. Cook for three or four hours. Strain and serve.
Beef Tea No. 3 Pour hot water over one half teaspoonful of beef extract. Stir well, and season with salt, pepper, and celery salt. This may be served hot or in a glass with cracked ice.
Three versions of the same sickroom staple, ranging from an hour's gentle extraction to a spoonful of jarred concentrate. The point of all three is a clear, savoury infusion of beef juices, not a stock, and heat is the thing that ruins it.
- Never let it boilThis is the hinge of No. 1, which says in terms not to let it boil. (No. 2 takes the opposite tack: the kettle is brought gradually to a boil and held there for three or four hours.) Above a simmer the soluble proteins coagulate and drop out as grey scum, leaving a cloudy, flat-tasting liquid instead of a clear red-brown one. A double boiler keeps the mixture below boiling on its own.
- No time is given for No. 1The original leaves the simmering open-ended. Forty-five minutes to an hour over the water bath extracts most of what the meat will give up; beyond that you gain colour but little flavour.
- Doneness, not appearanceBeef tea looks raw-red even when it is fully extracted, which unsettles modern cooks. Held at a proper simmer in a water bath (No. 1 gives no time; No. 2 specifies three or four hours), it will have been well past 160F throughout and is safe; do not judge it by colour.
- The Mason jar methodNo. 2 is a water-bath infusion, not canning, and the jar should not be sealed tight. Screw the band on loosely or set the lid on unclamped so steam can escape, and start in lukewarm water as directed so the glass does not crack.
- Lean means leanRound or shin, trimmed of every scrap of fat and gristle. Fat emulsifies into the liquid and gives the greasy mouthfeel that invalid cookery was specifically trying to avoid. Chopping finer, or coarse-grinding, raises the yield noticeably.
- Beef extract in No. 3The period product was Liebig's or Bovril, a dark meat paste. A modern equivalent is a teaspoon of concentrated beef base or half a stock cube in a cup of hot water; expect it to be considerably saltier than the homemade versions, so hold back the added salt until you taste.
- YieldA pound of beef and a pint of water gives roughly a cup and a half of strained liquid, one or two servings. The spent meat was normally discarded, though in fact it retains most of the meat's protein.
- Salt and storageTwo level teaspoons to a pint is heavily seasoned by current taste; start with one. No. 1 directs that it be served at once; beef tea is perishable in any case, so refrigerate any remainder and use within a day.
Beef tea belongs to the nineteenth-century sickroom, where it was regarded less as food than as medicine, on the belief that the strength of meat lay in its juices rather than its fibre. That idea was given commercial form by Justus von Liebig, whose meat extract was marketed from the 1860s and became the ancestor of the bouillon cube; No. 3 is simply that product in a glass. Nursing manuals of the era, Florence Nightingale's among them, gave beef tea a great deal of attention, and she was among those who pointed out that it contained very little actual nourishment however comforting the invalid found it.