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Fever Diet

A diet for fever including bread, tea, milk, fish, gruel, barley water, and arrow-root.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and fish are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,668 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Fever Diet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Boil the fish until cooked through, then flake it into small pieces.

Serve

  1. Serve the fish with 1 pint of tea and 1 pint of milk.

  2. Prepare gruel according to package instructions and serve 1 pint.

  3. Provide barley water as needed.

  4. Include arrow-root as directed by a healthcare professional.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Bread + fishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Tea + barleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together49 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Tea + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Bread + barleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together201 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fish
Provides the main protein, and boiling sets its flesh so it flakes into pieces.
Milk
Adds moisture, mild sweetness and richness to the serving.
Arrow-root
Thickens liquid into a smooth, soft texture.

The step that matters

Cook the fish until cooked through. The fish should turn opaque and flake easily when fully cooked. Underdone fish stays translucent and rubbery at the centre, while boiling too hard can toughen the flesh and make it dry.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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