Don’t Drink the Water~ Barley Water
A cooling beverage with curative properties too? Bring on the barley water!
What do you do when it’s hot outside and the water isn’t safe to drink? What about some barley water?
A staple in both the kitchen and the sickroom, many Georgian era cookbooks offered recipes for this thick, starchy, restorative beverage.
The basic recipe offered by Eliza Rundell leaves out the very important step of straining out the barley (to be used elsewhere) once it has boiled. The remaining starchy water is then seasoned with lemon juice, lemon peel and sugar to taste.
Left as such, it was a fitting beverage all around, for children (who were thought to need bland, simple diets for best health) or adults, the healthy or the infirm.
Other cookbooks suggested a variety of different ways to add flavor to barley water. The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies suggests:
Barley Water
Two ounces of pearl barley washed clean in cold water. Put it into half a pint of boiling water and let it boil five minutes. Pour off this water and add to it two quarts of boiling water. Boil it to one quart and strain. The following addition makes it an agreeable drink. Two ounces of figs sliced, two of raisins stoned, half an ounce of liquorice sliced & bruised, and a pint of water.
Which would certainly yield a more flavorful beverage. Hannah Glasse (1747) suggests adding two spoonfuls of white wine to each glass of barley water. Elizabeth Raffald recommends a little currant jelly.
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The Servant’s Guide and Family Manual takes a slightly different direction. it suggests that five to ten drops of ‘muriatic acid’ (hydrochloric acid) might be added to an ale glass of barley water as a curative for bad breath to be taken three times a day for a month to six weeks. Don’t say it, I know what you are thinking and I’m way ahead of you. Do not try this at home kids. The same manual also recommended:
Another medicine of this kind, which has often proved beneficial when the stomach has been wrong, and the bowels costive, is, the following :—Take 1 dram of sulphate of magnesia, 2 drams of tincture of calumba, 1 ounce of infusion of roses; make a draught, to be taken every morning, or every other morning, an hour before breakfast, for at least a month.
The Servant’s Guide and Family Manual 1831
Though this mixture seems to have a little less risk to it than the first one, I think I’ll stick to the non-medicinal variety.
Have you ever had barley water? Are you likely to? Tell me in the comments.
In Britain, there is Robinson’s Barley Water a popular commercial orange or lemon barley water squash (concentrated fruit drink mix) which you dilute with water to taste. It can be bought from stores with British imported products in North America.
We often used to have Robinson’s Lemon Barley as children and my Nana loved it. I tend to drink plain water now along with hot water and lemon (either a slice or juice)
Luckily I was never given it with hydrochloric acid as a taster!
Some of the things they ate, drank or used as medicine make me wonder how people survived at all!
No thank you. Thanks for sharing.
I’m with Glynis and wonder how on earth they survived their curatives. I’m also with Sheila, nope, no thank you, I’ll pass. You always have the most interesting posts. What fun.
I’ve always wondered about barley water! Thanks for the explanation.
You may be surprised to learn that a lot of people take hydrochloric acid with meals. Our stomachs produce less acid as we age. Some diseases have the same effect. Food takes longer to digest, irritating the stomach, resulting in acid indigestion. Most people only need the betaine capsules for a few months, as their stomachs begin producing more acid on their own. Protein is particularly hard to digest with insufficient acid. (I know this sounds weird, but it helps a lot of people. I’ve learned a lot of sometimes strange facts from you, I had to share one of mine.) ?
ps. Many people believe that medications like Pepcid and Nexium contribute to osteoporosis because the body is unable to digest the minerals in food.
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