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Breakfast Coffee
Allow one tablespoonful of coffee to each person. The coffee when ground should be measured, put in the pot, and boiling water poured over it in the proportion of three-quarters of a pint to each tablespoonful. The instant it boils take the pot off, uncover and let it stand a minute or two; then cover, put it back in the fire and boil again. Let it stand for five minutes to settle; it is then ready to pour out.
This is boiled coffee, made in a plain lidded pot with no filter and no paper. The method works, but the proportions and the double boil both need comment.
- The ratio is weak by modern tasteThree-quarters of a pint per tablespoon works out to roughly 1 tablespoon of grounds to 12 fl oz of water. Current practice is closer to 2 level tablespoons per 6 oz cup, so expect something considerably thinner than you are used to unless the tablespoon is heaped generously.
- Pint, US or ImperialIf the book means a US pint, three-quarters is 12 fl oz; an Imperial pint gives 15 fl oz. The recipe does not say, and at these proportions the difference is noticeable.
- Boiling is the part modern practice rejectsCoffee brewed at a full boil pulls out bitter compounds and drives off aromatics. Water at 195-205F is the accepted range, and bringing the pot back to a boil a second time is what gives old-style boiled coffee its scorched, papery edge.
- Why it is boiled twiceThe brief uncovered rest and second boil may be intended to drive the grounds up and then let them fall, since the pot has no filter; the recipe itself does not say. A dash of cold water or a crushed eggshell was a familiar period trick for settling grounds.
- The grindBoiled coffee wants a coarse grind, roughly what you would use for a French press. Anything fine will stay in suspension and pour through into the cup no matter how long you let it settle.
- Settling matters more than timingFive minutes off the heat is the hinge of the whole thing. Pour before the grounds have dropped and you get silt; pour slowly and steadily, and stop before the last inch of the pot.
- YieldAs written, one tablespoon and 12 oz of water is a single generous serving. Scale both together for the number at table.
Oscar Tschirky's book dates from 1896, when boiling was still the ordinary American way with coffee, and had been for most of the century: a tin or enamelled pot, grounds thrown loose into hot water, and some device for settling them. Filter methods existed in France and percolators were on the market, but the plain boiled pot remained familiar enough that a Waldorf cookbook could record it as a matter of course. What the entry really shows is how much of the technique was devoted not to extraction but to the problem of getting the grounds out of the cup.