Making Coffee
"One for the pot" and a heaping table-spoon of ground coffee for each person, is the usual allowance. Mix well, either with a part or the whole of an egg (or codfish skin, washed, dried, and cut in inch pieces, may be used instead of egg), and enough cold water to thoroughly moisten it, place in a well-scalded coffee-boiler, pour in half the quantity of boiling water needed, allowing one pint less of water than there are table-spoons of coffee. Roll a cloth tightly and stop up the nose or spout, thus keeping in all the coffee flavor. Boil rather fast five minutes, stirring down from the top and sides as it boils up, and place on back part of stove or range where it will only simmer for ten or fifteen minutes longer. When ready to serve add the remainder of the boiling water. Or, another method of making coffee without clearing, is to stir the coffee directly into the boiling water, boil and simmer as above, then pour out a large cupful, and, holding it high over the pot, pour it in again; repeat this, and set it on stove where it will keep hot, without simmering. The coffee will be clear, if instructions are carefully followed. Coffee boiled a long time is strong, but not so well flavored or agreeable as when prepared as above. To keep the coffee-pot or tea-pot thoroughly pure, boil a little borax in them, in water enough to touch the whole inside surface, once or twice a week, for about fifteen minutes. No dish-water should ever touch the inside of either. It is sufficient to rinse them in two or three waters; this should be done as soon after they are used as possible; drain dry, and when ready to use scald out in two waters. These precautions will aid in preserving the flavor of the tea and coffee. In selecting coffee, choose that which is dry and light; if it feels dense and heavy it is green.
This is boiled coffee, the American standard before drip and percolators took over, with egg used as a clarifier. Most of the instructions still make sense once you translate the vessel and the ratio.
- The hinge: egg is the filterMixing egg into the damp grounds is what makes the brew clear (the recipe allows part or all of an egg, and says nothing about shell). The protein coagulates in the heat, traps the fine particles and drags them to the bottom. Skip it and you get the murky cup the recipe is trying to avoid.
- "Coffee-boiler"A tin or enamel pot with a spout, set directly on the stove -- not a percolator and not a French press. Any tall saucepan works; a wide pan encourages boil-over during the fast five minutes.
- The water ratio is thin, and ambiguousA heaping tablespoon per person plus one for the pot, but "one pint less of water than there are table-spoons of coffee" gives roughly a pint of water per tablespoon of grounds -- far weaker than modern practice of about 2 tablespoons per 6 oz cup. Read the coffee count as the guide and treat the pint figure with suspicion; a smaller unit may have been intended.
- Grind coarseNothing strains the coffee out, so a coarse, even grind is essential. Fine or espresso grind will stay in suspension no matter how much egg you use, and will turn harsh over the long simmer.
- Twenty minutes on the heat is too longFifteen to twenty minutes on the heat is too long -- Five minutes of hard boiling plus ten to fifteen simmering over-extracts badly; the book half-admits it at the end. Modern brewing keeps water at 195-205F for about four minutes. If you want the period result, follow the original; if you want a good cup, cut the simmer sharply and never let it return to a rolling boil.
- Codfish skinThe substitute clarifier the recipe offers in place of egg. Dried fish skin is rich in collagen, which softens in the hot water and helps bind and settle the fines. Nobody sells it for this purpose now and there is no reason to hunt for it.
- Plugging the spoutThe rolled cloth is there to hold in aromatics, and it works, but it also seals a boiling vessel. Leave the lid slightly ajar so steam has somewhere to go.
- Do not use the boraxBoiling borax in the pot was standard cleaning advice, and borax is no longer regarded as safe for food-contact use. Hot water, a soft brush and a thorough rinse remove coffee oils well enough; the underlying point -- rinse and dry the pot immediately, never leave it soaking in greasy dishwater -- is sound.
- Judging the beansThis probably refers to whole roasted beans. "Dry and light" would mean properly roasted, since roasting drives off moisture and expands the bean; dense and heavy beans are under-roasted, which the book calls "green."
- YieldAs written, one heaping tablespoon per drinker plus one extra, so the batch scales to the number at table. Add the reserved boiling water only at the moment of serving, so the grounds stay settled at the bottom.
Boiled coffee of this kind was the ordinary American method for much of the nineteenth century: grounds and water together in an open pot on the range, with egg, eggshell or a scrap of dried fish skin to settle the sediment. Percolators and drip pots existed but were far from universal in home kitchens, so clarity was a matter of technique rather than hardware. That the recipe bothers with a fifteen-minute simmer and warns that long boiling makes coffee "strong, but not so well flavored" comes from a period when coffee was often stretched, adulterated or blended with chicory, a habit that took particularly firm hold in the South during and after the Civil War blockade. The housekeeping notes attached to the end -- rinse the pot, never wash it in dishwater, scald before use -- are typical of the compiled domestic manuals of the period, where a recipe and the care of the utensil that makes it belonged in the same paragraph.