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Beef Tea
From Beeton's Every-Day Cookery and Housekeeping Book, London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1865.
I had thought the middle of February, the height of cold and flu season, would be a fine time to offer a good Victorian recipe for beef-tea. I hadn't realized how apt the timing would be, as my husband is presently in the final throes of a rather bad cold. I decided, however, that the interests of culinary experimentation notwithstanding, I would refrain from offering him beef-tea.
Invalid cookery such as beef-tea wasn't really so much for the passing illnesses of colds and flu, though; it was intended for people whose illnesses ranged from mumps to consumption to any number of ghastly ailments, and who could expect to lie in bed for weeks or even months recovering. During the chief crisis of the illness nutrition was necessarily limited, and as the patient recovered strength and health, the diet was gradually expanded to include more substantial offerings. From liquids and soft foods like gruel, beef-tea, and jellies, the invalid would graduate to simple foods---at least, simple by Mrs. Beeton's reckoning, including roast mutton, rabbits, or calves' feet or heads. As she notes:
A mutton chop, nicely cut, trimmed, and broiled to a turn, is a dish to be recommended for invalids; but it must not be served with all the fat at the end, nor must it be too thickly cut. Let it be cooked over a fire free from smoke, and sent up with the gravy in it, between two very hot plates. Nothing is more disagreeable to an invalid than smoked food.
Indeed. Other healing offerings include toast-and-water (which is basically toasted bread soaked in water, the liquid then drained off and drunk by the patient when thoroughly cool), soft-boiled eggs, and milk. Mrs. Beeton cautions us to use only the highest quality foods and never let spoiled or turned food into the sickroom. She also quotes Florence Nightingale extensively on sickroom cookery and practice, with helpful advice for encouraging the patient's appetite and speeding his recovery.
I don't really know whether people still use beef-tea today; I know that in my family we leaned more toward chicken soup and buttered toast, and today I use judicious amounts of ginger and garlic for treating colds. But then I've never had to nurse anyone with consumption, pleurisy, or whooping cough.
Beef Tea
1 lb. of lean gravy-beef
1 1/2 pint of water
1 saltspoonful of salt
Mode---Have the meat cut without fat and bone, and choose a nice fleshy piece. Cut it into small pieces about the size of dice, and put it into a clean saucepan. Add the water cold to it; put it on the fire, and bring it to the boiling-point; then skim well. Put in the salt when the water boils, and simmer the beef-tea gently from 1/2 to 3/4 hour, removing any more scum should it appear on the surface. Strain the tea through a hair sieve, and set it by in a cool place. When wanted for use, remove every particle of fat from the top; warm up as much as may be required, adding, if necessary, a little more salt. This preparation is simple beef-tea, and is to be administered to those invalids to whom flavorings and seasonings are not allowed. When the patient is very weak, use double the quantity of meat to the same proportion of water. Should the invalid be able to take the tea prepared in a more palatable manner, it is easy to make it so by following the directions in Soyer's recipe, which is an admirable one for making savoury beef-tea. Beef-tea is always better when made the day before it is wanted, and then warmed up. It is a good plan ot put the tea into a small cup or basin, and to place this basin in a saucepan of boiling water. When the tea is hot, it is ready to serve. Time---1/2 to 3/4 hour. Average cost, 6d. per pint. Sufficient---allow 1 lb. of meat for a pint of good beef-tea.
From Beeton's Every-Day Cookery and Housekeeping Book, London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1865.
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