Sick-room cookery (food for the invalid, nourishment on feverish days)
Thin Oat Gruel with Treacle (Water Gruel)
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A very thin oat porridge, cooked long and strained, lightly sweetened with treacle and scented with a hint of nutmeg. Light, warm, and digestible, it is the food of the sickroom, to be taken in small sips.
Sick-room cookery (food for the invalid, nourishment on feverish days)
A very thin oat porridge, cooked long and strained, lightly sweetened with treacle and scented with a hint of nutmeg. Light, warm, and digestible, it is the food of the sickroom, to be taken in small sips.
For a weakened body, no heavy foods: we prepare a thin gruel, gentle as a convalescence. Dissolve fine oatmeal in cold water, cook over a very low fire stirring constantly, then pass through a sieve to keep only the velvety liquid. A thread of treacle, a grating of nutmeg, and serve it warm, in small patient spoonfuls. It is a small thing, and yet it is what restores strength when all else repels.
Ingredients
- •Fine oatmeal — two spoonfuls (base)
- •Water — a large cup (cooking)
- •Treacle — a drizzle (sweetness)
- •Nutmeg — a grating (flavouring)
- •Salt — a very small pinch (seasoning)
How it was made : Water gruel appears in all 19th-century cookery and nursing manuals, from Mrs Beeton to Florence Nightingale, as a staple food for the sick: easy to digest, inexpensive, quick to prepare. It was made with water (water gruel) or milk (milk gruel) depending on the patient's condition, and sometimes flavoured with a little wine or spices to 'strengthen' it.
Sources : Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing, 1859 · Isabella Beeton, The Book of Household Management, 1861