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Oatmeal and Cocoa
Take two thirds of a cup of fine oatmeal, three fourths of a cup of cocoa, one half cup of sugar, and pour over three quarts of boiling water. Stir well and set aside to cool. Strain and flavor with a teaspoonful of vanilla. Serve cold.
A sickroom cooler from the era when oatmeal water was standard nursing equipment. It makes a large quantity of a thin, chocolate-flavored oat drink rather than anything like modern hot cocoa.
- Mix the dry goods firstWhisk the oatmeal, cocoa and sugar together thoroughly before the water goes on. Cocoa powder poured loose into boiling liquid seizes into lumps that no amount of stirring will break up, and the strainer will simply remove them along with the flavor.
- "Fine oatmeal"This means finely ground oat meal, closer to oat flour than to modern rolled or instant oats, and finer than coarse pinhead/Scotch cut. Rolled oats will work but give a thinner extraction; pulse them in a blender first.
- The cocoaUnsweetened cocoa powder is what is meant; the recipe does not specify natural or Dutch-processed. Three quarters of a cup in three quarts is a firm hand -- taste before you commit to the full half cup of sugar.
- The oats are never really cookedBoiling water poured over dry meal steeps it rather than cooking it, which is why the mixture is strained. If you want a rounder, less raw flavor, bring the whole thing to a simmer for five to ten minutes before setting it aside.
- Cooling and holding"Set aside to cool" meant a cold larder. A sweet starchy liquid left at room temperature for hours is a poor idea; cool it quickly, refrigerate, and use within two days. Add the vanilla after chilling, since heat drives off the aroma.
- StrainingA fine-mesh sieve leaves a good deal of suspended meal, which is arguably the point. For a clear drink, line the sieve with a double layer of cheesecloth and let it drip rather than pressing.
- YieldThree quarts, roughly sixteen six-ounce glasses. It separates on standing, so stir or shake before pouring.
Oatmeal water -- meal steeped in cold or boiling water, strained, and sweetened -- was a standard nursing preparation in British and American households through the nineteenth century, valued because it was nourishing, cheap, and easy on a patient who could not manage solid food; harvest workers drank a plainer version for thirst. Cocoa arrives here as the fashionable improvement, since by 1900 cheap cocoa powders had turned chocolate from a luxury into a grocery staple, and it was commonly recommended as a strengthening drink for the sick and convalescent. The result sits between a gruel and a beverage, which is what a sickroom drink of the period was meant to be.