🧪 Bad Science 1912

Syllabubs Under the Cow

A punch bowl of sherry, brandy and lemon, carried out to the dairymaid to be filled from the cow.

From: Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery
Published: 1912
Yikes Scale: Yikes

Exactly as printed, 1912

Take a large china bowl--punch bowl is the most suitable for the purpose--put into it half a pound of lump sugar, the strained juice of a lemon, a pint of sherry, a glassful of brandy, and three-quarters of a pint of cream beaten up with white of egg. Stir the mixture briskly for a minute or two, and put a dozen ratafias into it. Take it to the dairymaid, and let her milk the cow into the bowl until it is quite full. Put it away, and let it remain untouched till the following day. Grate a little nutmeg on the top, and serve.

Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery, 1912. Public domain; transcription unaltered.

So what happens if I make it?

Milk drawn straight into the bowl is unpasteurised and at blood heat, and raw milk is a documented vehicle for campylobacter, listeria, salmonella and E. coli.

Then it is deliberately set aside until the following day. A warm dairy mixture standing overnight in a Victorian larder is the second half of the problem, and the sherry is nowhere near strong enough to be doing what the recipe assumes.

Notes from the 21st century

The foam is why it had to happen at the cow. Milking from a height whips air into the wine. You cannot reproduce it by pouring from a jug, which is the entire charm of the dish.
Three books in our corpus print a version. Cassell's, the British Cookery Book and Good Housekeeping. It was a real and popular thing to do.
Modern syllabub is excellent. Cream whipped with wine, sugar and lemon, chilled. It is the same flavour and it keeps the dairymaid out of it.

Also in this book

Peacock — Kill it with a quill through the brain, roast it, sew it back into its feathers, and set its beak alight.
Porpoise — “This fish is often caught at sea by the crews of vessels, and its flesh makes a pleasant change.”
Russian Mode of Preserving Fruit — Fresh fruit packed in quicklime slaked with creosote water, in a wooden box.

Don't take our word for it. The complete book is online, free and searchable.

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