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Drink

Drinks for the Sick

A collection of simple fruit and bread-based drinks intended to soothe the sick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Drinks for the Sick

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fruit drink

  1. Pour boiling water over the mashed cranberries, apples, currants, or raspberries.

  2. Pour off the water, sweeten it, and let it cool.

Make the bread drink

  1. Toast a slice of white bread until very brown, then soak it in cold water for an hour.

  2. After an hour, the water will be a refreshing drink.

Make the grain drink

  1. Pour boiling water over toasted brown bread or pounded parched corn, boil for one minute, then strain.

  2. Add sugar and cream or milk to the strained liquid.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Apple + corntop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Bread + corntop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together547 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed cranberries
Boiling water draws out their fruit flavour and tartness into the drink.
White bread
Toasting it until very brown adds roasted, toasty flavour to the soaking water.
Brown bread
Toasted and boiled, it gives the liquid a roasted, toasty flavour and colour.
Pounded parched corn
Parching gives the corn a toasted flavour that infuses into the boiled water.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and softens the sharp, thin taste of the strained liquid.

The step that matters

Pour off the water, sweeten it, and let it cool. Sugar dissolves most easily in warm liquid, so sweetening before cooling keeps the drink evenly sweet. Cooling before drinking keeps it refreshing rather than hot.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, bread, corn, sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, bread, corn, sugar, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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