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Raspberry Vinegar
To six pounds of picked raspberries add one pint of white vinegar; let them be placed in a covered stone jar and kept in a cool temperature for ten days. At the end of that time remove the surface carefully, filter the raspberry vinegar, mix it with equal proportions of 30 degrees syrup in an earthen pan then bottle and keep it in a cool place. When used, mix the vinegar with either spring water or any kind of aerated mineral waters.
GINGERADE-Dissolve three pounds of loaf sugar in two gallons of water; then add the well-beaten whites of three eggs, and two ounces of ground Jamaica ginger; it is well to moisten the ginger with a little water before adding it to the whole. Now place this over the fire in a porcelain kettle, bring slowly to the boiling point, skim and stand aside to settle; when cold, add the juice of one large lemon and one-fourth of a yeast cake, dissolved in two tablespoons of warm water; mix thoroughly and strain. Fill into bottles, cork tightly and tie the corks, and stand at once in a cool place. It will be ready to use in about two days.
EGG-NOG-Beat the white of an egg to a stiff, dry froth. Beat into this one tablespoon of sugar. Next beat in the yolk of the egg and a tablespoon of brandy. Add one and one-half gill of sweet milk and a slight grating of nutmeg. Pour into a tumbler, and serve at once. A tablespoon of rum or wine may be substituted for the brandy.
Three separate summer drinks run together in one paragraph: a raspberry shrub, a lightly fermented gingerade, and a single-serving egg-nog. The first two are workable with translation; the third is the reason for the caution above.
- The egg-nog is the problemIt is raw white and raw yolk with a tablespoon of brandy stirred in and served at once. That much alcohol does nothing to pasteurise an egg, and nothing in the method brings it near 160F, so any Salmonella present on or in the shell goes straight into the glass. If you want egg-nog, use a current recipe built on a cooked custard base or pasteurised eggs.
- 30 degrees syrupA Baumé hydrometer reading, the standard confectioner's measure of the period, not a temperature. Thirty degrees Baumé is a heavy syrup of roughly 55 per cent sugar by weight — near enough equal weights of sugar and water, boiled to dissolve. Any given cook's syrup varied, so treat this as a rich simple syrup rather than a precise figure.
- GillHalf a cup. The egg-nog's gill and a half is three-quarters of a cup of milk.
- Loaf sugarRefined white sugar, once sold as a hard cone to be broken up. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct substitute, weight for weight.
- Ground Jamaica gingerPlain dried ground ginger; Jamaica was the prized source. Two ounces to two gallons is a fierce dose by modern palates. Moistening it to a paste first, as directed, is what keeps it from floating in dry clumps.
- Egg white as a clarifierThe whites in the gingerade are not a flavouring. As the syrup heats, the coagulating albumen traps sediment and ginger dust, which is then skimmed off — the same raft principle as clarifying consommé. These whites are boiled, unlike the egg-nog's.
- Corked and tied bottlesA quarter of a yeast cake in two gallons produces carbonation in about two days, and the tied corks are there because the pressure will otherwise push them out. Heavy pressure-rated bottles and a cool place are essential; ordinary bottles left in a warm room can burst.
- Skimming the raspberry jarAfter ten days a mould or yeast film may form on the surface. Removing it carefully before filtering is the step that decides whether the finished vinegar tastes of fruit or of cellar.
- Yield and servingServing -- An inch or two of the syrup in a tumbler topped with cold water or soda is the usual proportion. The recipe states no yield.
Raspberry vinegar belongs to the family of drinking vinegars known in English as shrubs, from the Arabic sharāb, meaning simply a drink; the same root gives us sherbet and syrup. Steeping soft fruit in vinegar and sweetening the result was a way of holding a June crop into August before reliable canning, and the sharpness was thought to be genuinely cooling — such vinegars were poured for haymakers and for invalids, and were a standing item in nineteenth-century sickroom cookery. The gingerade and egg-nog that follow show the other half of the household's drink-making, where a fraction of a yeast cake produced a mild fizz in about two days and a single egg beaten into spirits counted as both refreshment and nourishment.