gruel

This gruel will have your orphans saying "please sir, may I have some more?"

I found this recipe in a book published in 1714. I was captivated by this book. One of the more notable recipes I stumbled across called "Ricketty Drink" calls for 300 live wood lice, and boasts "Tis almost infallible for weak children".

Another recipe affectionately called "another drink" calls for "ivory shavings" and apparently helps with a fever. This recipe comes just after a recipe called "another drink in a fever", and comes before "another sort". I had never realized we have come so far in the labels we give our food.

Naturally some of the methods are questionable by today's standards. All of the beef recipes included leaving the beef out for at least a week and up to three, and only took caution to note the necessity to "turn the meat upside-down every day, that the brine do not settle".

Rinsing your produce seems frowned upon as well. One recipe dictates- "you are to pick your cherries clean from soil and stalks, but not wash them".

This book is almost 300 years old, and comes from an era before it was widely known or accepted that different foods had different nutritional value. It wasn't until 1747 James Lind instigated one of the first clinical experiments in the history of medicine while trying to understand the relationship of citrus fruit and scurvy. Sadly, it wasn't till after we understood that scurvy was caused by a lack of vitamin C, that we started to understand that all food was not equal as it pertains to nutrition. It was not until 1795 that Admiral Alan Gardner deviated from standard practice and started to issue lemon juice to his entire fleet after a successful trial run the year before.

Enough Blathering! it's Gruel time!

"To make a very good barley gruel"

• 1/2 cup pearl barley*
• 4 cups water
• 1/2 cup currants or raisins*
• 3 egg yolks
• 1 cup apple juice*
• 1 cup (or half pint) cream
• the peel of a lemon sliced in small pieces
• as much sugar as you like* (I don't recommend any. It's pretty sweet)

Bring the water to a boil, and add the barley. Once the barley is soft and white, remove it from heat and add the currants.

In a seperate bowl, beat the egg yolks, apple juice, and cream. Add this bowl to the barley and return it to a boil. Add the lemon peel, and sugar to taste. Boil until about the consistency of oatmeal.

Notes-

*Barley pearls can be purchased at a health food store.

*Currants are not common in America. I found some zante currants next to the raisins in the regular plain 'ol grocery store. Which technically speaking zante currants are a different type of raisins. Most likely, this recipe is referring to red or black currants. Either way, raisins are a good substitute.

*The original text calls for white wine instead of apple juice. But apple juice is not only an easier substitute for most, but it adds the sweetener for the gruel.

If you would like to see the original recipe, go to page 72 in the link below.

http://books.google.com/books?id=pK6RIvi8M1AC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false