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Hot Lemonade
This should be drunk only just before retiring; it is excellent for colds, but care should be taken to avoid all exposure on the following day. One lemon; threefourths cup of boiling water; sugar to taste. Squeeze the lemon juice into the water, and add the sugar. Serve hot.
A single-serving hot drink, and about as simple as a recipe gets. The only things worth saying concern proportions and the handling of the juice.
- YieldThree-fourths cup of water plus the juice of one lemon makes a single mug, close to a cup once the juice is in. Scale directly for more.
- Add juice off the boilThe recipe directs the juice straight into boiling water; pouring the water over the juice, or letting the kettle stand a moment first, is a common preference, as prolonged heat is generally held to dull the fresh flavour of lemon juice.
- How much sugar"sugar to taste" is left unspecified; two to three teaspoons for one lemon is a reasonable starting point, and a large lemon may take more. Stir until the sugar has dissolved before tasting.
- Lemon size has changedLemon size varies -- lemons sold today may run larger and milder than the fruit the book assumed. Taste and add water rather than sugar if it comes out too aggressive.
- Warm the vesselThree-fourths cup of water in a cold cup drops below drinking temperature quickly. Rinse the mug with hot water first if the drink is meant to be taken hot.
- On the medical adviceThe instruction to drink it only at bedtime and avoid exposure the next day belongs to a period theory of chills and sweating out a cold. Treat it as period context, not guidance.
Hot lemonade belongs to the tradition of invalid cookery, alongside beef tea, barley water, gruels and albumen drinks. The nursing of a household fell to whoever ran the kitchen, and hot acid-and-sugar drinks were a standard part of that repertoire: cheap, palatable to someone with no appetite, and thought to promote the sweating that was believed to break a cold. Lemons had become a reliable year-round grocery item in American cities by the turn of the century, largely through Sicilian imports and then California growing, which is why a recipe like this could be printed as a matter of course rather than as a luxury. The Butterick books were published by the dress-pattern company as part of a broader program of domestic instruction for women, and the invalid section reflects that brief: not cooking for pleasure but managing a household competently, sickroom included.