Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
A caudle is a hot drink, popular in the Middle Ages for its supposed medicinal properties. The OED cites the use of the word to 1297. The earliest surviving recipe, from 1300-1325, is simply a list of ingredients: wine, wheat starch, raisins, and sugar to "abate the strength of the wine".[2]. Another recipe from the late 14th century has more ingredients and more details on the cooking procedure: mix breadcrumbs, wine, sugar or honey, and saffron, bring to a boil, then thicken with egg yolks, and sprinkle with salt, sugar, and ginger. [3] [4] A 15th-century English cookbook includes three caudle recipes: ale or wine is heated and thickened with egg yolks and/or ground almonds, then optionally spiced with sugar, honey, saffron, and/or ginger (one recipe specifically says "no salt"). [5] A related recipe for skyr appears in the early 13th century. [6]
The word caudle also appears in the 14th century in another sense: as a fish soup.[7]
In a description of hazing at Merton College, Oxford in 1647, caudle is described as a "syrupy gruel with spices and wine or ale added".[8]
A posset (also spelled poshote, poshotte) was a later development (the OED cites the word to the 15th century). Milk was heated to a boil, then mixed with wine or ale, which curdled it, and the mixture was usually spiced. [9] It was considered a specific remedy for some minor illnesses, such as a cold, and a general remedy for others, as even today people drink hot milk to help them get to sleep.
Eggnog belongs to the same family of milk punches.
In the Forme of Cury "possynet", translated as posset in the 18th C. is referenced as part of a sauce made from stuffing, drippings, and meat gelatin for serving over goose. In this case, the posset might have served as a form of thickener, comparable in function to a modern white sauce of milk, butter, and flour.
In 16th-century and later sources, possets are generally made from lemon, or other citrus, juice; cream and sugar. Eggs are often added, as well.
The preparation of posset could be elaborate, and the word "posset" became a verb, meaning to coddle or pamper someone by taking trouble to make them comfortable. Some scholars trace the verb "coddle" to "caudle", but others assign them different derivations.
"Posset sets" for mixing and serving possets were popular gifts, and valuable ones (often made of silver) were heirlooms. Such sets contained a posset "pot," or "bowl," or "cup" to serve it in, a container for mixing it in, and usually various containers for the ingredients, as well as spoons. The posset set that the Spanish ambassador gave Queen Mary I of England and King Philip II of Spain when they became betrothed in 1554 is believed to have been made by Benvenuto Cellini and is of crystal, gold, precious gems, and enamel. It is on display at Hatfield House in England and consists of a large, stemmed, covered bowl, two open, stemmed vessels, a covered container, three spoons, and two forks.
Lady Macbeth uses poisoned possets to knock out the guards outside Duncan's quarters, "The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms Do mock their charge with snores. I have drugg'd their possets That death and nature do contend about them, Whether they live or die." Macbeth Act II, Scene ii
[edit] References
- ^ "Posset Pot". Metalwork. Victoria and Albert Museum. http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/40980-popup.html. Retrieved 2007-12-09.
- ^ Item 5, Diuersa Cibaria, BL MS Add. 46919 ff, 19r-24v, reprinted in Hieatt & Butler, Curye on Inglysch, Early English Text Society 1985, ISBN 0-19-722409-1, p. 45
- ^ Item 43, Forme of Cury, various mss, reprinted in Curye on Inglysch, ibid.
- ^ See also Thomas Austin, Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books, Early English Text Society 1888.
- ^ Items 83, 84, 139, Yale MS Beinecke 163, reprinted in Constance Hieatt, An Ordinance of Pottage, Prospect Books 1988, ISBN 0-907325-38-6
- ^ Grewe and Hieatt, Libellus de arte coquinaria: an Early Northern Cookery Book, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies v. 222, 2001, ISBN 0-86698-264-7
- ^ Items 114 and 127, Forme of Cury, ibid.
- ^ Olmert, Michael (1996). Milton's Teeth and Ovid's Umbrella: Curiouser & Curiouser Adventures in History, p.174. Simon & Schuster, New York. ISBN 0684801647.
- ^ Item 130, An Ordinance of Pottage, ibid.
Annotations
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posset
A spiced drink of hot sweetened milk curdled with wine or ale.ETYMOLOGY: Middle English poshet, possot : perhaps Old French *posce (Latin posca, drink of vinegar and water, from potare, to drink; see potable + Latin esca, food, from edere, to eat; see edible) + Middle English hot, hot; see hot.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/55/P0465500.html
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”..What posies for our wedding rings;
What gloves we’ll give, and ribbonings;
And smiling at our selves, decree
Who then the joining priest shall be;
What short sweet prayers shall be said,
And how the posset shall be made
With cream of lilies, not of kine,
And maiden’s-blush for spiced wine.
Thus having talk’d, we’ll next commend
A kiss to each, and so we’ll end…”
http://www.emule.com/poetry/?page=poem&poem=3014Both pancake and fritter of milk have good store,
But a Devonshire white-pot must needs have much more;
Of no brew … you can think,
Though you study and wink,
From the lusty sack posset to poor posset drink,
But milk’s the ingredient, though wine’s … ne’er the worse,
For ‘tis wine makes the man, though ‘tis milk makes the nurse.
…..No doubt the original word in these places was SACK, as in Chappell’s copy - but what would a peasant understand by SACK?
Dryden’s receipt for a sack posset is as follows:-
‘From fair Barbadoes, on the western main,
Fetch sugar half-a-pound: fetch sack, from Spain,
A pint: then fetch, from India’s fertile coast,
Nutmeg, the glory of the British toast.’
http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/poetry/AncientPoemsBallads/chap88.htmlMISCELLANY POEM, V. 138.
Next (Poem 68) …
“quod posset zonam soluere uirgineam. ..
that could untie her girdle of virginity. “
http://www.vroma.org/~hwalker/VRomaCatullus/068b.html
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Posset recipes
A couple of posset recipes and some historical detail are at this website,
along with a portrait of Sir Kenelm Digby: -
Posset…(Brewers)
Properly means a drink taken before going to bed; it was milk curdled with wine.
“In his morning draught…his concerves or cates…and when he goeth to bedde his posset smoking hot.”
Man in the Moone (1609) -
As a child in the ’50s, I was given a posset if ill and unable to take solid food: it was milk, with an egg beaten up in it, sugar and sherry. Wonderful comfort food. It is used as such in the children’s classic book, The Box of Delights.
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another Posset:To make a posset
PERIOD: England, 17th century | SOURCE: The Art of Cookery Refined and Augmented, 1654 | CLASS: Authentic
DESCRIPTION: A posset, a cream & wine custard
from:a interesting sauce. http://www.godecookery.com/engrec/engrec53.html
To make a posset.
Take a quart of new Cream, a quarter of an ounce of Cynamon, Nutmeg quartered, and boyl it till it taste of the spice, and keep it alwayes stirring, or it will burn to; then take the yolks of 7 Eggs beaten well together with a little cold Creame; then put that into the other Creame that is on the fire, and stir it till it begin to boyle; then take it off and sweeten it with Sugar, and stir on till it be indifferent coole; then take somewhat more than a quarter of a pinte of Sack (half a pinte will be too much) sweeten that also, and set it on the fire till it be ready to boyle; then put it in a convenient vessel, and pour your Creame into it, elevating your hand to make it froath, which is the grace of your Posset; and if you put it thorow a tunnell, it is held the more exquisite way. -
Michael Quinion knows his possets, caudles, and cordials:
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I’ve just made a posset.
It is very nice but more than one cup may cause excessive vomiting due to the whole cream/sugar/sherry mixture. The top goes all lumpy and you can spoon that out, the middle is the nicest bit where the spicy cream mixes with the sherry and the bottom bit is mainly sherry.
Nice, but I couldn’t get my housemates to have any.