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Beverages Served with Sandwiches (Method Cut the rhubarb into)
Method.-Cut the rhubarb into pieces without peeling; add the bay leaf and water, and let simmer until the rhubarb is tender; strain through a cheese-cloth. Boil the juice with the sugar five minutes. When cold add the orange and lemon juice, with one-fourth a cup of syrup from a jar of preserved ginger, and a piece of ice. Add water as needed.
This is the method half of a rhubarb punch; the ingredient list that belonged with it named the quantities, so a few amounts have to be judged by eye. What survives is a sound formula: a rhubarb infusion, a short sugar boil, citrus and ginger syrup added only after cooling.
- Missing quantitiesThe method assumes a list that is not reproduced here. A workable ratio for this style of drink is about 1 lb trimmed rhubarb to 1 quart water and 1 cup sugar, one bay leaf, the juice of one orange and one lemon; treat that as a reconstruction, not the original measure.
- Leaves off, always"Without peeling" refers to the stalks only. Rhubarb leaves contain high levels of oxalic acid and are never used in food; cut them away and discard them before the stalks go in the pan.
- Simmer, do not boil hardRhubarb collapses fast. A gentle simmer of 10 to 15 minutes until the stalks are limp gives a clear pink juice; a rolling boil pushes pulp through the cheesecloth and clouds the drink.
- Strain without pressingLet the fruit drip through the cloth rather than squeezing it. Pressed pulp is what makes rhubarb cordials muddy and slightly gritty on the tongue.
- Preserved ginger syrupThe quarter cup of syrup from a jar of stem ginger in syrup is the flavour that distinguishes this from plain rhubarbade. Chopped crystallised ginger simmered briefly in the sugar syrup is the nearest substitute.
- Citrus goes in coldAdding orange and lemon juice after the syrup has cooled keeps the fresh top note; boiled citrus juice tastes flat and faintly bitter.
- A piece of iceAt the time this was written that meant a chunk chipped from a block, added to the bowl or pitcher to chill and dilute at once. Modern practice is to chill the base thoroughly and ice the glasses, then thin with cold water to taste.
- YieldIf the reconstructed quantities above are used, the result is in the region of 1 1/2 quarts of concentrate; the original gives no amounts and tells you to add water as needed, so the number of glasses cannot be fixed.
Rhubarb reached American kitchens as a spring garden crop, valued because it was ready weeks before any tree fruit, and cookbooks of the 1890s and 1900s put its sharp juice to work in shrubs, punches and "summer drinks" as well as pies. This one belongs to a chapter of beverages meant to be poured alongside sandwiches at a luncheon, tea or card party, the kind of hostess entertaining that Janet McKenzie Hill's Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing-Dish Dainties was built around: no alcohol, made ahead, served from a pitcher or glass bowl. The bay leaf and the ginger syrup are period touches, the same instinct that put a bay leaf in blancmange and preserved ginger into fruit cups. Jarred stem ginger in syrup was a familiar imported grocery item then, sold in stoneware pots.