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Mutton Custard for Bowel Complaints or Consumptive
CASES. 1223. Take two ounces of fresh mutton suet shred fine, and half a drachm of cinnamon, or some grated nutmeg, and boil in rather more than a pint of milk: when boiled, to be set by the fire till the scum rises, which should then be carefully taken off. Half a tea-cupful may be given, warm or cold, as the patient prefers, three or four times a day. It should be continued till the complaint is quite cured.
An invalid's drink from the era when fat suspended in milk was the standard nourishment for anyone who could not keep down solid food. It is straightforward to make, but the quantities are apothecaries' measures and the finishing step is easy to misread.
- Not a treatmentThis was prescribed for bowel complaints and for consumption, and it does nothing for either. Read it as a period document, not as medicine; anyone unwell needs a doctor, not mutton suet.
- A drachmHalf a drachm in apothecaries' weight is about 1.9 g of ground cinnamon, roughly three-quarters of a teaspoon, or a short stick of cassia bark left in the milk. "Some grated nutmeg" is left to the cook: a quarter of a whole nutmeg is in the same range.
- Fresh mutton suetTwo ounces (55 g) of hard fat from around the kidneys, which a butcher may supply on request. Packaged shredded suet sold for puddings is usually beef and often part vegetable oil, and it carries flour as an anticaking agent, which will thicken the milk.
- Shred it very fineSuet only renders into the milk if the pieces are small. Chill it hard, strip off any membrane, then grate it or chop it to crumbs before it goes into the pan.
- Boiling the milkAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz and the recipe wants rather more than that, so 2½ US cups is about the mark. Use a heavy pan over low heat and stir; milk with fat and spice in it scorches on the bottom long before you smell it.
- The scum is the pointStanding by the fire lets the unrendered suet and the coagulated milk protein rise and set as a cap. Skimming it off is what makes the drink drinkable rather than greasy, and it is worth chilling the pan and lifting the disc off cold.
- Custard in name onlyThere is no egg here and no thickening. Expect a thin, faintly spiced, slightly oily milk that will separate on standing and needs stirring or reheating before each serving.
- YieldAbout a pint of finished liquid after skimming. A half teacupful of the period is roughly 2 fl oz, so the batch runs to about ten doses, two to two and a half days at four doses a day; keep it refrigerated and discard after two days.