To Make A Yellow Flummery

An 18th C Reciept

Feb 24, 2024

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As promised, here is the 18th C recipe I was talking about last week. We have our fiber play day coming up this Saturday and I try to make a snack or two for the folks that come over. Usually, brownies or such are on the menu, and I decided to make something different this time.

My Rob and I did 18th C reenacting and I strove to be as historically correct as possible, including the foods we had in camp, and on occasion at home. I belong to a historic cooking FB page, and they did monthly challenges to recreate recipes. This recipe was one of them. I will tell you that my attempt was an absolute disaster. It did not set up at all. I found out what my mistake was and went on to make it several more times without problem. This is also going to use up the rest of my bottle of Reisling wine that I used for the osso bucco recipe.

No, I didn’t just drink it, although it’s been calling me every time I open the fridge. Having the flu than a really nasty head cold has me drinking water and gatorade instead of anything else. Even coffee tastes “off” at the moment.

This recipe makes what amounts to wine and lemon jello custard.

This recipe comes from The Complete Housewife by Eliza Smith, 1773

Yellow Flummery

“Take two ounces of isinglass, beat it and open it, put it into a bowl, and pour a pint of boiling water upon it; cover it up till almost cold, then add a pint of white wine, the juice of two lemons with the rind of one, the yolks of eight eggs beat well, sweeten it to your taste, put it in a tossing-pan and keep stirring it; when it boils strain it through a fine sieve. When almost cold put it into cups or moulds.”

You are probably looking at that recipe and wondering what the heck isinglass is.

isinglass /ī′zən-glăs″, ī′zĭng-/

noun

A transparent, almost pure gelatin prepared from the swim bladder of the sturgeon and certain other fishes and used as an adhesive and a clarifying agent.

Basically, it’s the 18th C equivalent of Knox gelatin you can get at the store today. This was my downfall in the original attempt. I got isinglass from amazon thinking it was the same thing.

Nope

The stuff I got was used for clarifying beer for home brewing and had other stuff in it.

Hence my flummery soup.

Live and learn right?

You can find the real stuff online thought. Here is a link to one of them.

Angel Brand Isinglass

Also, a tossing pot is a shallow pan, similar to a sauté pan.

The recipe in modern terms:

2 .25 packets of knox gelatin

2C water-lukewarm

2C white wine of your choice-I used a sweet Reisling for this since that’s what I had on hand

Juice of 2 lemons, came to 1/2C for me

Rind of one lemon

8 egg yolks

1C sugar

Gather up your ingredients.

I beat the egg yolks into the pan I’m going to heat this in. To that add the lemon juice, wine, lemon rind, and sugar. Beat well to incorporate all ingredients so you don’t end up with pockets of egg yolk.

I just sliced off the rind leaving the pith behind. I didn’t want to bring a bitter note into the finished product.

Put your pot on the stove and start to slowly heat it on med high heat

In a separate bowl put your 2C of lukewarm water and the two packets of gelatin, mix well and allow that to sit for a minute or two. Add that to the heating pot and mix well.

Bring this up to a slow boil and keep mixing. It took me about 15 mins to get to that slow boil.

Once you hit that point, remove it from the heat and strain it into a clean bowl. I let it sit for about 10 minutes before pouring it into a mold of your choice.

I used a bundt style pan that when its inverted will look like pine trees standing there. I don’t have any 18th C correct molds so this will have to do.

Leave that to sit until its cool enough to handle without burning yourself. I then put it into an oversized zip lock bag and put it into the fridge to set up. It’s going to stay there until Saturday when folks come over.

To unmold, dip pan into hot water and invert onto serving plate. Garnish as you desire. I got a small lemon that I’ll cut into slices and somehow or another stick them around it to make it pretty. I offer whipped cream to serve with it.

I did leave it in the warm water just a tad too long and it came out of the mold softer than I would have liked. I just popped it back into the fridge and it firmed back up. It just doesn’t look as pretty as I would have liked.