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Rye Mush
Place pint and a half water and half pint milk in a thick-bottomed saucepan, add half teaspoon salt, and as soon as it comes to a boil strew in three-quarters of teacup sifted rye flour, constantly mix with a wooden spoon until it comes to a boil, then let slowly cook one and a half hours, being careful to stir at the bottom quite frequently meanwhile to prevent burning. Pour into a deep dish and serve with cream and sugar separately.
A thin rye porridge cooked long and slow. The whole success of it lies in getting the flour into the boiling liquid without lumps, and then keeping the heat low enough that the bottom does not scorch over the next hour and a half.
- The hinge: strew, don't dumpAdd the flour in a slow rain with one hand while stirring hard with the other, or lumps will set instantly and never break up. A whisk for the first two minutes, then a wooden spoon, is the reliable method.
- MeasurementsA pint and a half water plus half a pint milk is 2 pints, or 4 cups liquid total. If a period teacup is taken at roughly 6 fl oz, three-quarters of one is a generous 1/2 cup of flour — about 2 oz by weight. That is a deliberately loose ratio of roughly 8:1; the mush is soupy at first and thickens as it cooks.
- Which rye flour"Sifted rye flour" means light or medium rye, not the coarse dark or pumpernickel meal sold today. Dark rye will give a heavier, more sour result and will want a little more liquid.
- Heat and panThe thick-bottomed saucepan is not decoration. Keep the flame at the lowest setting that maintains a lazy bubble, and scrape the bottom corners with the spoon every few minutes. A double boiler removes the risk entirely at the cost of a longer cook.
- The long cookingNinety minutes is more than starch gelatinization needs, but it is what mellows the raw, grassy taste of rye and gives the smooth texture the recipe is after. Forty-five minutes produces edible porridge with a distinctly floury edge.
- Yield and servingFour cups of liquid gives roughly four to six modest breakfast servings. Cream and sugar are passed at the table so each eater floods their own; maple syrup or molasses suits rye better than white sugar.
- LeftoversCooled in a loaf pan the mush sets firm enough to turn out and slice. Sliced 1/2 inch thick and fried in butter or bacon fat until crisp, it is the same treatment given to cold cornmeal mush.
"Mush" is the American word for a grain boiled in water to a porridge, and in nineteenth-century cookbooks it usually means cornmeal — "Indian meal mush" — with rye, oat and buckwheat versions less common. Rye persisted where rye itself was the everyday grain: northern and central Europe, and among German-speaking and Scandinavian households in America. The name "rye and Injun" is generally attached to a bread of mixed rye and cornmeal rather than to a mush. The instruction to serve cream and sugar separately is a genteel touch, marking the porridge as a dish brought to table rather than eaten from the pot.