Part 26

Ingredients: One cupful of tapioca, four cupfuls of water, juice and a little of the grated rind of one lemon, and sugar to taste.

Soak the tapioca for four or five hours in the water. Sweeten it, and set it in a pan of boiling water to cook an hour, or until it is thoroughly done and quite clear, stirring it frequently. When nearly cooked, stir in the lemon; and when done, pour it into little molds. Serve with cream sweetened and flavored.

SEA-MOSS BLANC-MANGE.

Wash the moss well, and soak it for half an hour or more in a little cold water. To half an ounce or a handful of moss allow one quart of water, or rather of rich milk, if the patient can take milk. When the water or milk is boiling, add the soaked sea-moss, and sugar to taste. Let them simmer until the moss is entirely dissolved. Strain the juice into cups or little molds. Many boil a stick of cinnamon with the water or milk, and flavor also with wine; but the simple flavor of the sea-moss is very pleasant. It may be served with a little cream and sugar poured over it.

ARROWROOT JELLY OR BLANC-MANGE.

Add two heaping tea-spoonfuls of best arrowroot, rubbed smooth with a little cold water, to a coffee-cupful of _boiling_ water or rich milk which has been sweetened with two tea-spoonfuls of sugar. Stir and boil it until it has thickened. It may be flavored with lemon-juice if made with water, or with brandy or wine if made with milk. It is very nice without flavoring. Pour into a cup or little mold. Serve with cream and sugar poured over, or with a _compote_ of fruit around it.

CORN-STARCH AND RICE PUDDINGS

are explained among the regular receipts for puddings. Little circular molds come in form of Fig. A, on page 59. It is a pretty form for any of these puddings or blanc-manges, with a _compote_ of apples, peaches, plums, or any other kind of fruit, in the centre.

RICE JELLY.

Mix enough water to two heaping tea-spoonfuls of rice flour to make a thin paste; then add to it a coffee-cupful of boiling-water. Sweeten to taste with loaf-sugar. Boil it until it is transparent. Flavor by boiling with it a stick of cinnamon if the jelly is intended for a patient with summer complaint; or add, instead, several drops of lemon-juice if intended for a patient with fever. Mold it.

Vanilla should never be used for flavoring any dish for an invalid. Homeopathic books can never say enough about its poisonous effects on even healthy and _robust_ persons.

RICE-WATER FOR DRINK

is made in the same way, in the proportion of a table-spoonful of rice flour to a quart of boiling water.

JELLY AND ICE (_for Fever Patients_).

Break ice into small pieces about as large as a pea; mix with it about the same quantity of lemon jelly, also cut into little pieces. This is very refreshing.

PARCHED RICE.

Parch rice to a nice brown, as you would coffee. Throw it into a little _boiling_ salted water, and boil it until it is thoroughly done. Do not stir it more than necessary, on account of breaking the grains. Serve with cream and sugar.

MILK PORRIDGE.

Put a dozen raisins into two cupfuls of milk. Bring it to a boil; then add a _heaping_ tea-spoonful of flour rubbed to a paste with a little cold water or milk; boil it three or four minutes. The raisins may not be eaten, yet they give a pleasant flavor to the milk; in fact, they may be taken out if the dish is intended for a child.

For a change, the well-beaten white of an egg may be stirred into this preparation _just after_ it is taken from the fire, and, again, the raisins may be left out, and the porridge simply flavored with salt or sugar, or sugar and nutmeg.

BEEF SANDWICH.

Scrape very fine two or three table-spoonfuls of fresh, juicy, _tender_, uncooked beef; season it slightly with pepper and salt; spread it between two thin slices of slightly buttered bread; cut it neatly into little diamonds about two and a half inches long and an inch wide.

PREPARED FLOUR FOR SUMMER COMPLAINTS (_Mrs. Horace Mann_).

Tie up a pint of flour very tightly in a cloth, and put it into boiling water, and let it boil three hours. When untied, the gluten of the flour will be found in a mass on the outside of the ball. Remove this, and the inside will prove a dry powder which is very astringent. Grate this, and wet a portion of it in cold milk. Boil a pint of milk, and when it is at the boiling-point stir in as much of the wet mixture as will thicken it to the quality of palatable porridge. Stir in a little salt, and let this be the article of diet until the disease is removed. Relieve it at first by toasted bread, or a mutton broth, which latter is also astringent. If the disease has not progressed to the degree of inflammation, this diet will generally preclude all need of medicine.

The author would also add, for a change of diet, well-boiled rice with a little cream, parched rice, beef juice, toasted water or milk crackers, a little tea (avoiding generally too much liquid), and a little wild-cherry brandy; or to Mrs. Mann’s flour porridge, when cooked, and just taken hot from the fire, the well-beaten white of an egg might be added; and, after stirring them well together, the preparation should be served immediately.

MILK TOAST.

Toast one or two thin slices of bread with the crust cut off; if there are two slices, have them of equal size. When still hot, spread evenly over them a very little fresh butter, and sprinkle over some salt. Now pour over a small tea-cupful of boiling milk, thickened with half a tea-spoonful of flour, and salted to taste. If the invalid can not take milk, the toast may be moistened with boiling water. Serve immediately. It is a very appetizing dish, when fresh made and hot.

PANADA.

Sprinkle a little salt or sugar between two large Boston, soda, or Graham crackers, or hard pilot-biscuit; put them into a bowl; pour over just enough boiling water to soak them well; put the bowl into a vessel of boiling water, and let it remain fifteen or twenty minutes, until the crackers are quite clear and like a jelly, but not broken. Then lift them carefully, without breaking, into a hot saucer. Sprinkle on more sugar or salt if desired: a few spoonfuls of sweet, thick cream poured over are a good addition for a change. Never make more than enough for the patient at one time, as they are very palatable when freshly made, and quite insipid if served cold.

Toasted bread cut into thin even slices may be served in the same way. This is also a good baby diet.

A panada may be made by adding an ounce of grated bread or rolled crackers to half a pint of boiling water, slightly salted, and allowing it to boil three or four minutes. It may be sweetened, and flavored with wine or nutmeg, or both; or the sugar and nutmeg may be simply sprinkled over.

ASH-CAKE.

Wet corn-meal, salted to taste, with enough cold water to make a soft dough, and let it stand half an hour or longer; mold it into an oblong cake, about an inch and a half or two inches thick. A clean spot should then be swept on the hot hearth, the bread placed on it, and covered with hot wood-ashes. The bread is thus steamed before it is baked. It should be done in a half to three-quarters of an hour, and brushed and wiped before eaten. There is no better food than this for dyspeptics inclined to acidity of the stomach, on account of the alkaline properties of the ashes left in the crust. In other extreme cases of dyspepsia where acids are required, I have heard of cures being effected by the use of buttermilk.

MILK PUNCH.

Sweeten a glass of milk to taste, and add one or two table-spoonfuls of best brandy. Grate a little nutmeg over the top.

EGG-AND-MILK PUNCH.

Stir well a heaping tea-spoonful of sugar, and the yolk of an egg together in a goblet, then add a table-spoonful of best brandy. Fill the glass with milk until it is three-quarters full, then stir well into the mixture the white of the egg beaten to a stiff froth. The receipt for “Eggnog” among the “Beverages” is similar to this, and better, of course, as whipped cream is substituted for milk.

HERB TEAS

are made by pouring boiling water over one or two tea-spoonfuls of the herbs, then, after covering well the cup or bowl, allowing it to steep for several minutes by the side of the fire. The tea is sweetened to taste. Camomile tea is quite invaluable for nervousness and sleeplessness; calamus tea, for infants’ colic; cinnamon tea, for hemorrhages; watermelon-seed tea, for strangury.

BONESET FOR A COUGH OR COLD (_Mrs. General Simpson_).

Pour one and one-half pints of boiling water on a ten-cent package of boneset. Let it steep at the side of the fire for ten or fifteen minutes, when strain it. Sweeten it with two and a half coffee-cupfuls of loaf-sugar, then add one half-pint of Jamaica rum; bottle it. A child should take a tea-spoonful before each meal; a grown person, a sherry-glassful.

BOTANIC COUGH SIRUP.

This book is not a medical treatise, yet I can not resist the temptation to add the following receipt, given me by Mrs. H----, of Buffalo. Many cases of long and aggravated cough have been entirely cured by its use. If the patient has a tendency to vertigo, the bloodroot may be omitted from the receipt; but for pale persons of weak vitality it will be found a valuable addition.

Ingredients: Elecampane, one ounce; spikenard, one ounce; cumfrey root, one ounce; bloodroot, one ounce; hoarhound tops, one ounce.

Add two quarts of water to these herbs, and steep them five hours in a porcelain or new tin vessel; add more boiling water, as it boils away, to keep the vessel as full as at first. At the end of this time, strain the liquid, add one pound of loaf-sugar, and boil it until it is reduced to one quart.

_Dose._--A dessert-spoonful before each meal and before retiring. It should be kept in a cool place; or a little spirits may be added to prevent its spoiling.

ARRANGEMENT OF DISHES FOR INVALIDS.

BEEFSTEAK.

Cut out the tender part of the beef from a porter-house or a tenderloin steak. The slice from these steaks, if large, can be cut in two, as it is sufficient for two meals for an invalid. Let it be three-quarters of an inch thick; trim or press it into shape (it should be oval in form). Broil it carefully over a hot fire, cooking it rare: the inside should be pink, not raw. To cook it evenly without burning, turn it two or three times, but do not pierce it with a fork nor squeeze it. It does not require over two minutes to finish it. Do not put pepper and salt over it until it is cooked, as salt rubbed on fresh meat contracts the fibres and toughens it. However, as soon as it is cooked and placed on a little hot oval platter, sprinkle salt and pepper over it; then, placing a small piece of fresh butter on the top, set it into the oven a minute to allow the butter to soak into the meat: it only requires a small piece of butter. Beefsteak swimming in butter is unwholesome, and as slovenly as it is wasteful.

If an invalid can eat beefsteak, he can generally eat some one vegetable with it; and to make the little plump, tender morsel of beef look more tempting, garnish it with the vegetable. If with potatoes, bake one or two equal-sized potatoes to a turn. When quite hot, remove the inside; mash it perfectly smooth, season it with butter, or, what is better, cream and salt, and press it through a colander. It will look like vermicelli. Place it in a circle around the steak.

If with pease, when they are out of season, the French canned pease or the American brand of “Triumph” pease will be found almost as good. One can, if kept well covered, should furnish three or four meals for an invalid. Merely heat them, adding a little salt and butter. Do not use much, if any, of the juice in making a circle of them around the beef.

If you garnish with tomatoes, make them into a sauce, as follows: After cooking and seasoning them with salt and pepper, turn off the watery part, add a little stock, if you have it (however, it is nice without it, if the word stock frightens any body), and press it through the sieve. Pour it around the steak.

If with Lima beans, cook them as in receipt (see page 201) with parsley. Lima beans, as well as string-beans, green corn, and onions, should not be trusted, in severe cases of illness. A few water-cresses around a steak would not be injurious to a convalescent.

MUTTON-CHOP.

Scrape the bone, and trim the chop into good shape; this adds much to the appearance, and requires but little time for one chop. Rub a little butter on both sides, and broil it carefully, having it well done; season it as explained for beefsteak. It can be garnished in the same way.

BREAST OF CHICKEN.

Choose a tender chicken, and cut out the breast; season it, rub a little butter around it, and throw it on a fire of live coals which is not too hot. Watch it constantly, turning it around to cook evenly on all sides. If skillfully done, the surface will be very little charred, and the inside meat will be more tender and juicy than if cooked in any other way. Cut off such parts as may be much crisped. Season with butter, pepper, and salt. Form the breast into a cutlet, with the leg, as described on page 175. Rub it with butter, and broil it carefully on the gridiron. Garnish it with rice steamed with rich milk. It is especially nice with tomato-sauce.

CHICKEN BOILED.

The second joint of a leg of chicken thrown into a little salted boiling water, or into stock, makes a delicious dish, with a chicken-sauce (see page 123) poured over it. I think this second joint is more tender, and has more flavor, than the breast.

VENISON STEAK.

A tender cut from a venison steak should be broiled the same as a beefsteak. It is nice with mashed potatoes (_à la neige_), or a currant-jelly, or a tomato-sauce around it.

TO PREPARE A BIRD.

I remember the effects of a quail so well, eaten when very ill, that I have a decided disinclination to mention the word “bird” in association with “invalid dishes” at all. But there is a difference in the tenderness of birds, of course; and, then, a bird need not be swallowed whole, if one should be ever so hungry. If a bird is to be served, be sure that it is a tender one. Broil it carefully, or cook it whole in this manner: Put it into a close-covered vessel holding a little boiling water, and place it over a very hot fire; steam it for a few minutes; then brown it in the oven, basting it very frequently. Serve a tomato, currant-jelly, or wine sauce around it.

INVALID’S BILLS OF FARE.

(_When a laxative diet is not objectionable._)

BREAKFAST.

Oatmeal porridge. A poached egg on toast.

DINNER (_at half-past twelve o’clock_).

Beefsteak and mashed baked potatoes; toasted Graham crackers.

_Dessert_: Sea-moss blanc-mange.

TEA.

Boston brown-bread cut into slices, with cream poured over.

A baked apple.

BREAKFAST.

Hominy grits; a mutton-chop, with tomato-sauce.

DINNER.

A chicken broth, quite thick with rice, and some pieces of chicken in it.

Wafers.

_Dessert_: A raw egg, arranged as in receipt on page 322, with sherry wine.

TEA.

Milk-toast.

BREAKFAST.

Oatmeal porridge. The second joint of a leg of chicken cooked on the coals and served with pease around it.

DINNER.

Beef broth, thick with tapioca. Graham wafers.

_Dessert_: Boiled parched rice, with cream.

TEA.

Corn-meal mush, with cream and sugar.

PREPARED FOODS FOR INVALIDS, ETC.

I am indebted to Dr. Franklin, of St. Louis, for this little chapter. Appreciating his experience in the uses of prepared foods for invalids, I asked his advice about certain ones, when he kindly sent me a written opinion, which I insert _verbatim_. Dr. Franklin says:

“In the dietetic treatment of the sick, notwithstanding that well-meaning and unwise friends often injure their patients by solicitations to take more food, it is often one of the great difficulties to induce the invalid to partake sufficiently of what is suitable, remembering that the body is nourished by the assimilation of the food, and that the assimilating power is weak, and can not be overtaxed. But the desire of food, and, indeed, the assimilation, depend in a considerable degree on the manner in which it is presented. It should not only please the eye and gratify the palate, but should be varied in kind and method of preparation.

“_Liebig’s Extract of Meat_ is an economical and valuable preparation. It is valuable in nearly all cases of _physical_ debility and extreme emaciation, especially after profuse losses of blood in collapse from wounds; for patients suffering from severe and prolonged fevers in the last stage of consumption; in bad cases of indigestion, when the stomach rejects all solid food; and as an article of diet for nursing-mothers, etc.

“In cases of extreme exhaustion, the extract may be mixed with wine. As it is stimulating, it may take the place of tea and coffee, and will be less liable than they to produce derangement of the digestive organs. An advantage with this extract is that it can be readily prepared.

“_Valentine’s Extract of Meat._--This is one of the best articles of the kind for the sick-chamber, and is not only simple of preparation, but is the most nutritive of all the beef essences. As a medicinal agent, it will be found of great value to the sick, and for persons (children as well) with weak constitutions.[K]

“These beverages, in common with any nutritive soups, offer to the patient whose general bodily functions are more or less suspended a fluid and assimilable form of food. It is to this adaptation of nourishment to the condition of the body that we must, in part at least, ascribe their beneficial results. They have a remarkable power of restoring the vigorous action of the heart, and dissipating the sense of exhaustion following severe, prolonged exertion, and may be recommended in preference to the glass of wine which some take after watching, preaching, prolonged mental effort, etc.

“Rice (whole or ground), barley, etc., may often be advantageously added to thicken beef tea.

“_Gillon’s Essence of Chicken._--A similar preparation may be more readily made by using this essence of chicken, which may be procured from any homeopathic chemist. This simply requires diluting with hot water in the proportion stated upon each tin case.

“_Oatmeal Porridge._--When properly made, this is both wholesome and nutritious, and especially suitable when a patient does not suffer from water-brash, acidity, or from any form of bowel irritation. It has long been the staple food of the Scotch, and produces good muscular fibre and strong bone. It is a very nourishing diet for growing children. The common oatmeal is not equal to the Scotch oatmeal; however, it is not always easy to obtain the latter.

“_Pearl Barley_ forms an excellent meal. It should be boiled for four hours, so tied in a cloth that room is left for the grain to swell. Only so much water should be added from time to time as to feed the barley and supply the waste of evaporation, lest the strength of the barley should be boiled out. It may be served with milk, or (if the patient can digest them) with preserves, jelly, or butter.

“_Macaroni-pudding._--Three ounces of macaroni should be soaked for forty minutes in cold water, then added to a pint of boiling milk. This should be stirred occasionally, while it simmers for half an hour; two eggs are then added, beaten with a dessert-spoonful of sugar; also, if desired, a flavoring of lemon. This may then be baked in a pie-dish for twenty minutes.

“Vermicelli may be used instead of macaroni, but requires only twenty minutes’ soaking.

“Part of a loaf of stale bread, boiled, and served with butter and salt, or with preserves, affords a change of wholesome food. Bread-pudding made with eggs and milk, either boiled or baked, may be used, made according to the receipt used at Westminster Hospital, viz.: Bread, one-quarter of a pound; milk, one-quarter of a pint; sugar, one-quarter of an ounce; flour, one-quarter of an ounce; one egg for every two pounds. A pudding may be made in the same way of stale sponge-cake or rusks, to diversify the diet.

“_Neave’s Food._--Many years’ experience in the use of Neave’s Farinaceous Food justifies the recommendation of it as an excellent article of diet for infants, invalids, and persons of feeble digestion. Competent chemical analysts have found the preparation to contain every constituent necessary for the nourishment of the body, and this has been abundantly confirmed by what we have frequently observed as the result of its use. For infants it should be prepared according to the direction supplied with the food, taking care not to make it too thick; it also makes a very agreeable and highly nutritious gruel.

“One precaution is necessary: Neave’s food should be obtained fresh and in good condition; if exposed too long, it deteriorates. Under favorable circumstances it keeps good for from six to twelve months. It may generally be procured in good condition from the leading homeopathic druggists.

“Ridge’s, Hard’s, and other farinaceous foods have their advantages, and are preferred by some patients.

“Those foods that are pure starch, as ‘corn flour,’ so called, and all those which thicken in like manner, contain but a small proportion of nutriment, being less sustaining and also more difficult of digestion than ordinary stale bread. They are very unsuitable for young infants and children suffering from diarrhea, indigestion, constipation, flatulence, atrophy, or aphthæ.

“In all cases, food which contains traces of bran, and also gluten, gum, sugar, cellulose, and saline matter, especially the phosphates, in proportion to the starch, are to be preferred. I prefer the Ridge’s food for nursing infants, but either may be used according to adaptability.

“_Sugar of Milk._--A preparation of cow’s milk and sugar of milk forms a still lighter food, and one which, in the case of very young infants, should be used to the exclusion of farinaceous food. Cow’s milk may be assimilated to human milk by dilution with water and the addition of sugar of milk. Cow’s milk contains more oil (cream) and caseine, or cheese matter, but less sugar, than woman’s. When necessary to bring up a child by hand from birth, sugar of milk is more suitable to begin with.

“Formula: One ounce of sugar of milk should be dissolved in three-quarters of a pint of boiling water, and mixed as required with an equal quantity of fresh cow’s milk. The infant should be fed with this from the feeding-bottle in the usual way. Care must be taken to keep the bottle, etc., perfectly clean.

“_Alkershrepta_ (Chocolate).--One of the most delicate and nutritious beverages is made from this preparation of the cocoa. It is prepared from the best cocoa-bean, the highly nutritious natural oil of which is not extracted, as in the ordinary soluble chocolates, but so neutralized as not to derange the stomach of the most delicate. Its nutritious and mildly stimulating qualities, its purity, and the facility with which it is prepared for use--_not_ requiring to be boiled--recommend it as an excellent substitute for tea and coffee. Directions for its preparation accompany each package.