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Beef Punch
Pour 1 or 2 teaspoonfuls of oxcel into a cup, fill with boiling water, season with salt, pepper and celery salt; add a dash of sherry wine, and top with whipped cream.
A hot savory drink from the soda fountain era, when the counter sold beef bouillon alongside egg phosphates. It comes together in under a minute once you have the beef extract.
- OxcelA proprietary concentrated beef extract of the period, in the same family as Bovril, Oxo and Liebig's Extract of Meat. Any modern beef extract paste or concentrated beef base works; 1 to 2 teaspoons per cup is roughly right, though modern bases vary wildly in salt, so taste before adding more.
- SaltBecause commercial beef bases are already heavily salted, season at the end rather than the start. The celery salt adds salt as well as flavor.
- Celery saltNot merely decoration: celery salt turns up repeatedly in fountain bouillon recipes of the period and carries much of the aroma here, alongside the pepper. Half a pinch is enough in a single cup.
- A dash of sherryMeaning a few drops to half a teaspoon, stirred in after the water. Use a dry sherry such as fino or amontillado; cream sherry will make the cup taste sweet against the salt.
- Whipped creamUnsweetened, and lightly whipped so it floats rather than sits in a lump. Sweetened cream would fight the salt.
- Vessel and yieldOne serving, in a heavy china cup or a mug; the recipe specifies nothing more than 'a cup'. A glass tumbler will crack with boiling water unless it is tempered.
- Water temperatureThe recipe calls for boiling water, which dissolves the extract cleanly; cooler water may leave undissolved paste at the bottom of the cup, so stir before seasoning.
Soda fountains of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were not confined to sweet drinks: the same marble counter that dispensed phosphates and ice cream sodas also sold hot beef bouillon, clam broth and malted milk, marketed as restorative and often pushed in winter when cold drinks slowed. The trade leaned heavily on branded meat extracts, descendants of the concentrated beef paste commercialized from the 1860s on the strength of Justus von Liebig's work, which promised the nourishment of beef in a spoonful. Names like Oxcel, Vigoral and Bovril appear in fountain manuals of the era, often with an explicit claim of strength or tonic value. 'Punch' here presumably signals a fortified cup rather than anything fruit-based, though the book does not explain the name. The dash of sherry and the cap of whipped cream are fountain showmanship, turning a cup of broth into something a customer would pay for at the counter.