Home › Fourth Day › Fourth Day: Rhoda
Fourth Day: Rhoda
SO "Now I am going to get Rhoda's directions for coffee," said Aunt Jane, "for I don't know any one else who makes it quite so nicely. You must tell us your secret, Rhoda." "Why, laws, honey," said Rhoda, highly flattered, "I jus' take 'nuf coffee and stir it up with an egg or two, 'cordin' as I happen to have 'em, and put 'bout as much water to it as I think they'll drink, and let it bile till its done. That's all." "Well, Aunt Jane," said Grace, very gravely, "I suppose I am to write down Rhoda's recipe. Number 31. About enough coffee, some hot water, as many eggs as you happen to have, stir it all up together, and let it boil till its done. Is that it?" "I think, perhaps, I can make it a little more definite, and easier for other people to understand," said Aunt Jane, "but I'm afraid I shan't be able to put Rhoda's judgment into the receipt-book. The reason why so many people make poor coffee is that they never find out just how much coffee to put to just how much water, nor exactly how long to boil it. Another thing that you are almost sure to find where the coffee is bad, is that the coffee-pot is not thoroughly emptied, washed and scalded after each using. I have known cooks who never even threw out the grounds of the day before until they wanted to use the coffee-pot again for breakfast! Now look at the inside of Rhoda's. You see it has not only been emptied and washed, but wiped perfectly dry, so there will be no old, stale taste to mingle with the fresh one. I will give you my recipe, which means the same as Rhoda's."
No. 31-To MAKE COFFEE.
One quart boiling water, half a pint ground coffee, one egg, half a pint cold water; mix the coffee first with the egg, (which should not be beaten,) then with the cold water very thoroughly; put it in the coffee boiler, pour on the boiling water and let it boil fifteen or twenty minutes, then set it where it will not boil, and throw in onehalf gill of cold water. After standing a moment it will be ready to serve. This makes very rich coffee. If it is desired less strong, take less coffee, and cold water in proportion. "How much is a gill, mamma?" asked Amy. "A gill is a quarter of a pint; half a tumblerful, or about two small wine-glassfuls," said her mother. "A half gill may be measured by putting four even tablespoonfuls of water into a cup and noticing how high they come up. Then you will always have your measure at hand." "Is that all we are going to have for breakfast?" inquired Grace. "You will think it is quite enough when you have done cooking it, Gracie. It is rather an elaborate breakfast. Now if two of you will run and slip on your cooking aprons, we will begin our preparations to-night. We should have to get up almost too early if we should try to do it all in the morning."
Grace and Amy were ready in a twinkling, and while one chopped the cold potatoes left from dinner, the other prepared the veal, and cut it into small lumps ready for mincing. When the potatoes were done, the veal took their place in the chopping-bowl, and after being minced was mixed with a little salt and pepper, and set away in the ice-box for the night.
Bright and early the next morning, the four conspirators, (as Grace called them, because their movements were so secret,) repaired softly to the kitchen, where Rhoda had a good clear fire. Grace set about the Johnnycake, while Amy ground the coffee, and Mabel beat up the eggs for an omelette. "You see, Rhoda keeps her roasted coffee in a glass jar," said Aunt Jane. "That is an improvement on the old way of shutting it up in tin canisters, which are much more apt to acquire a stale odor." "Do the glass jars come on purpose?" asked Amy. "No, they are meant for preserves, but the reason they are so good for this purpose is that they can be closed up tightly from the air. You see this one can't be opened without the wrench."
When the Johnny-cake went into the oven, Grace took charge of the veal and potatoes at the back of the stove, while the little girls toasted bread at the front. When all else was ready to dish, Mabel turned her omelette into the spider, and it was done in a few minutes and sent in to the table smoking hot. Then the girls went to their rooms to wash their hands and take off their aprons, but their flushed faces betrayed at the breakfast table that something unusual had taken place. "What gave you all such rosy cheeks?" inquired Mr.
Aunt Jane's No. 31 is boiled egg coffee, the standard method in American households before drip and percolator pots took over. The proportions are workable; the boiling time is not.
- The hinge: the boilFifteen to twenty minutes of hard boiling will strip the coffee of aromatics and leave it bitter and flat. Egg coffee made today is brought just to a boil and held at a bare simmer for three or four minutes, no more, then pulled off the heat to settle.
- Gills and pintsA gill is a quarter of a pint, so the half gill of cold water at the end is 2 fluid ounces, or the four level tablespoons Aunt Jane describes. The half pint of ground coffee is a volume measure, roughly 3 to 4 ounces by weight depending on the grind.
- How strong this really isHalf a pint of grounds goes into a quart of boiling water plus the half pint of cold water, about a quart and a half of liquid in all, which works out at roughly twice modern brewing strength. The recipe admits as much when it says "very rich." Halving the coffee and reducing the cold water in proportion, as the recipe itself suggests, gives something closer to a strong contemporary cup.
- The egg is a clarifier, not a flavouringMixing the unbeaten egg into the dry grounds coats them; as it cooks the protein coagulates and traps the fines, so the brew pours clear and tastes rounder and less harsh. One egg for a quart is right. Some period cooks used only the shell and white.
- The cold-water finishThe splash of cold water at the end is generally explained as a way of settling the grounds, cold water being denser than hot and carrying them to the bottom of the pot, rather than as a way of cooling it; either way, the recipe has the coffee ready to pour "after standing a moment."
- Coffee boiler and spiderA coffee boiler is a plain lidded pot with a spout, not a filter apparatus; any small saucepan works. A spider, mentioned later in the scene, is a cast-iron frying pan, originally one with legs for hearth cooking.
- Storing the beansAunt Jane's glass preserving jar was good advice for its time, though light is the one thing glass does not keep out. An opaque airtight container away from heat is better, and whole beans ground at the moment of use better still.
- YieldA little under a quart and a half of very strong coffee once the grounds have taken up their share; at nineteenth-century cup sizes, enough for perhaps five or six at a full breakfast.
Boiled coffee, cleared with an egg, was the default American method for most of the nineteenth century: no paper filter, no pressure, just grounds and water in an open pot and a trick for settling the sediment. The technique survived longest in Scandinavian-American communities, where "egg coffee" is still made in church halls by the gallon, and it is often said to lie behind the cowboy-coffee habit of dropping in cold water or a crushed shell to drop the grounds. The scene around the recipe is as much of its period as the coffee is: a household cookery story written to teach girls to cook, in which the family's cook Rhoda works entirely by judgment and is transcribed in heavy dialect, while the aunt converts her practice into volume measures — pints, gills, tablespoonfuls — for the receipt-book. Aunt Jane's insistence on emptying, washing, scalding and drying the pot after every use is the soundest thing on the page, then and now, since stale coffee oils go rancid and taint everything brewed after them.