Memory Monday: Iced Coffee and Creamer Coffee

THEY HAD THIS BACK THEN!

I love coffee. (My husband just rolled his eyes.) Well, I love flavored coffee. Ok, I love flavored, iced coffee. The truth of the matter is that I love flavored, iced coffee with fat-free half- and-half (see why my husband rolled his eyes—he says what I drink is NOT coffee.) But, it has coffee in it. I love to get McDonald’s coffee (senior-priced, of course), bring it home, fill up my largest glass with ice, add a goodly splash of the aforementioned FF ½ & ½, add some sugar-free flavored syrup, then fill up the rest of it with coffee (see, I drink coffee). Just for your information, if you combine equal parts chocolate, caramel, and hazelnut syrups, you get snicker bar flavoring—great in iced coffee.

While I was growing up, there were only two choices for coffee—sweet or plain, well I guess there were four if you consider adding milk/cream to those. I was so excited years ago when I discover the packaged creamers in the milk section of the store. That’s when I began to enjoy coffee. And that was before I learned about iced coffee.

This is all being said so I can tell you about something I discovered today. In a cookbook published in 1860 named Practical American Cookery and Domestic Economy, I came across several recipes that I want to share. By the way, my great-granddaddy in in the school picture above. He was born in 1850, so his mother might have made these recipes.

I love cream in my coffee, but what if I’ve run out and can’t go to the store to get more until I’ve had my first cup in the morning. Well, I’ve found the solution with this recipe from 1860:

A SUBSTITUTE FOR CREAM FOR COFFEE.

Beat up a fresh egg, then pour boiling water on it gradually to prevent its curdling. It is difficult to distinguish it from rich cream.

And if I run out of flavored creamer, here’s the solution for that:

COFFEE-TO GIVE THE FLAVOR OF VANILLA.

Take a hand full of oats, very clean, and let them boil for five or six minutes in soft water; throw this away, and fill it up with an equal quantity, and let it boil for half an hour; then pass this decoction through a silk sieve, and use it to make your coffee, which will acquire, by this means, the flavor of vanilla, and is very nice.

Now doesn’t that sound yummy?

And not only that, back then they had iced coffee, too. Only they called it something else:

COFFEE ICE A L^'ITALIENNE.

Infuse a quarter of a pound of coffee in a pint of double cream, boiling hot, for two hours, closely covered; half whip the whites of nine eggs, and having strained the cream from the coffee, mix it with them; add half a pound of powdered sugar, and put it over a gentle fire till it begins to thicken, then ice it.

See, the good old days weren’t so bad.