Page:The White House Cook Book.djvu/501

 COFFEE, TEA, BEVERAGES. 461

ICED TEA

Is NOW served to a considerable extent during the summer months. It is of course used without milk, and the addition of sugar serves only to destroy the finer tea flavor. It may be prepared some hours in ad- vance, and should be made stronger than when served hot. It is bot- tled and placed in the ice chest till required. Use the black or green teas, or both, mixed, as fancied.

CHOCOLATE.

ALLOW half a cupful of grated chocolate to a pint of water and a pint of milk. Rub the chocolate smooth in a little cold water and stir into the boiling water. Boil twenty minutes, add the milk and boil ten minutes more, stirring it often. Sweeten to your taste.

The French put two cupfuls of boiling water to each cupful of chocolate. They throw in the chocolate just as the water commences to boil. Stir it with a spoon as soon as it boils up, add two cupfuls of good milk, and when it has boiled sufficiently, serve a spoonful of thick whipped cream with each cup.

COCOA.

Six tablespoonfuls of cocoa to each pint of water, as much milk as water, sugar to taste. Rub cocoa smooth in a little cold water ; have ready on the fire a pint of boiling water; stir in grated cocoa paste. Boil twenty minutes, add milk and boil five minutes more, stirring often. Sweeten in cups so as to suit different tastes.

BUTTERMILK AS A DRINK.

BUTTERMILK, so generally regarded as a waste product, has latterly been coming somewhat into vogue, not only as a nutrient, but as a therapeutic agent, and in an editorial article the Canada Lancet, some time ago, highly extolled its virtues. Buttermilk may be roughly de- scribed as milk which has lost most of its fat and a small percentage of casein, and which has become sour by fermentation. Long expe- rience has demonstrated it to be an agent of superior digestibility. It is, indeed, a true milk peptone that is, milk already partly digested, the coagulation of the coagulable portion being loose and flaky, and not of that firm indigestible nature which is the result of the action of the gastric juice upon cow's sweet milk. It resembles koumiss in its

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