How To Make Gruel

Ground rice flour, cornmeal, oatmeal, arrowroot, and other flours are used for gruel nourishing, healing food for stomachs temporarily disabled and unable to digest anything more substantial. Mix two tablespoons of the meal or flour with cold water till you have a smooth paste. Then stir the paste gradually into a pint of water boiling in a doubleboiler. Stir in slowly so there will be no lumps, and add quarter of a teaspoon of salt. Cover and let cook thoroughly if cornmeal or oatmeal three hours at least; if arrowroot and other lighter flours half to threequarters of an hour. Stir occasionally while cooking.

Barley Water

To a quart of cold water in a porcelain saucepan allow two ounces of mashed pearl barley, two ounces of seeded raisins, and the grated rind and juice of a lemon. Cover with an earthen plate and boil till the water is reduced onehalf. Strain and sweeten as the taste demands. Serve either warm or cold.

OldFashioned Beef Tea

Take a piece of lean meat from the round and free it from fat, etc. Cut in small pieces, or have the butcher run it through a meatchopper. Put the meat in an earthen or strong glass jar, cover with a quart of cold water, cork or seal tight, and set in a pot of cold water. Set over a slow fire, and slowly bring the water in the pot to boil. Move the jar now and then so that all the meat in it will have the same exposure to heat. Cook gently for two or three hours. Strain, season with salt, and serve in a hot bowl with toast or bread sticks.

Quick Beef Tea

Cut the steak into small pieces. Heat it thoroughly in a hot saucepan. Squeeze the little pieces one by one in a hot meat press or lemon squeezer, and let the juice flow into a bowl which is standing in hot water. Salt to taste.

Claude

Beat a fresh egg till it is a froth and stir it with a cup of hot gruel. Sweeten to taste, and serve with a dash of nutmeg over the top.

Chicken Broth

Wash and cut up a fullgrown fowl. If you wish a small quantity of broth for a sick person, use only the dark meat, reserving the white meat of the breast and wings for some other small dish. Put the dark meat and broken bones in a pot with a quart of water and bring it slowly to boil, and boil slowly till cooked to rags. Strain, put back and thicken with a tablespoon of cornstarch or arrowroot stirred smooth in a little cold water. Let the flour cook for a few minutes, and serve hot, slightly salted.

Mutton Barley Broth

Take two pounds of the scrag or neck of mutton using that part because it is lean and gives the sweetness of the bone to the cooking. Wash it, cut it in bits, put it in the pot with two quarts of cold water and bring it slowly to boil. When it boils, skim, drop in four ounces of washed pearl barley, cover tight, and cook slowly two or three hours. Strain, add salt to taste, and serve hot.

Blackberry Cordial

Heat the blackberries and press through a sieve. Strain the juice through a piece of cheesecloth. Take three pints of blackberry juice (it should not be too sweet) and add one pound of loaf sugar. Tie up a small bag of whole cinnamon, allspice, and a smaller quantity of cloves. Boil together the spices and juice twenty minutes slowly. Take off the stove, and flavor with California brandy enough to give a strong flavor. Bottle and cork tight.

Flax seed Tea Or Lemonade

Blanch two tablespoons of flax seed and then boil two hours in a quart of water. Keep close covered while boiling. Strain, and add lemonjuice and sugar to taste.

Hoar hound Cough Syrup

Make one pint of strong hoar hound tea and strain. Dissolve one ounce of gum Arabic in hot water, add to the tea. Add also one pound of white sugar. Boil to a syrup, skim when you take it from the fire, and add one teaspoon of the tincture of obelisk.

Jelly Water

Stir a tablespoon of currant jelly in a tumbler of fresh, cold water. Drop in a small bit of ice and serve. Other jellies may be used as, tart apple jelly, grape jelly, barberry jelly.

Slippery Elm Bark Tea

Break the bark in small pieces, rinse quickly, and then cover with, fresh, boiling water. Set the bowl in a warm place, put a cover upon it, and let the bark steep or infuse for half an hour. Then set where it will cool. Sweeten to taste, and drop bits of cracked ice in the cup from which it is drunk.