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Tea-Kettle Broth
1214. Cut some small squares of crumb of bread into a broth basin, and some finely chopped parsley, with enough of salt to flavour it; pour over it some boiling water, softening the whole with a spoonful or two of cream or milk. Some invalids like the flavour of mint, and peas when in season; and, if this can be allowed by the medical man, the water used must have a few young peas, or pea-pods, and a leaf of mint boiled in it, before pouring it over the bread; without this addition, it is often much liked by invalids, as being so free from grease, and so clean-tasting. A little clear gravy from under the drippingpan may sometimes be added with advantage. Pepper may be used or omitted, according to the palate or the nature of the illness.
A dish of the invalid-cookery tradition: bread, herbs and boiling water, assembled in the bowl rather than cooked in a pan. It stands or falls on the quality of the bread and the amount of liquid.
- The hinge: bread and water in balanceUse enough water only to soak and swell the bread, not to float it; the recipe gives no quantities, so judge by eye. Too much and it collapses into paste; too little and the crumb stays dry in the middle. Let it stand a few moments before eating.
- Crumb of breadThis means the soft interior of a plain white loaf, crusts removed, cut into small dice. Soft supermarket sandwich bread disintegrates; a day-old firm white loaf or a plain sourdough crumb holds its shape.
- Broth basinA deep individual bowl for taking broth or gruel. One basin is a single serving, and the recipe as written makes one portion.
- A spoonful or two of cream or milkProbably a tablespoonful, though the original does not say. The point is to soften the harshness of plain boiling water, not to make a milk soup — start with one and add the second only if the broth tastes thin.
- Pea-pod waterBoil a handful of young pods and a single mint leaf in the water, then strain and use it boiling hot. Pods give a sweet green flavour without the starch of the peas themselves.
- Gravy from under the dripping-panThe clear meat juices that settle beneath the fat in a roasting pan, not thickened gravy. Chill the pan drippings, lift off the solid fat, and use a spoonful of the jelly beneath. Well-skimmed roast juices or a spoonful of unsalted stock does the same job.
- Salt and pepperBecause there is no reduction or long cooking, the seasoning is judged as you assemble it: the salt goes into the basin with the bread and parsley before the water is poured on, and pepper is left to the palate or the nature of the illness. Taste after the cream goes in.
Tea-kettle broth is a real regional dish before it is an invalid dish: in Cornwall and Devon "kettle broth" or "kiddley broth" was bread, herbs, a little fat or milk and water straight from the kettle over the fire, eaten by families who had no meat to spare and no time to make stock. Victorian cookery writers moved it into the chapters on cookery for the sick, where its virtues were precisely what poverty had given it — no grease, no strong flavour, nothing to trouble a weak stomach, and it could be made in the bedroom from a kettle without lighting a range. The deference to the medical man over the peas and mint is characteristic of the period: sickroom diet was prescribed as carefully as medicine, and a cook was not expected to add a vegetable on her own authority.