Bread Jelly for the Sick

Written By Stefanie Goldberg

Written by Stefanie Golberg

The American Agriculturist, July 1849
Volume VII

Through the years, I have established an intimate relationship with chicken soup, toast and butter, and saltines; I have a great fondness for nursing sips of Coca Cola as I battle a stomach virus, with a box of oyster crackers nearby in case I’m feeling particularly bold. These are the foods that bring me much needed comfort in times of ailing. In all my years of illness, however, from the common cold to COVID, bread jelly never made the cut for go-to remedies. This is in large part because I was unaware of the jelly’s existence, its heyday more than two centuries before my birth. A lover of bread, especially that first freshly toasted slice of bread and butter as illness is lifting and appetite is returning, I was curious if this affinity would translate to the 1849 remedy of bread jelly.

This recipe for bread jelly hails from July 1849 in Volume VIII, Number VII of The American Agriculturist. The publication is certainly a male-focused publication, with a specific 1-page section in each printing called “Ladies’ Department”, dedicated to cooking, cleaning, and work within the home. That section, of course, is where this recipe for bread jelly (part of a larger grouping of “jellies for the sick”) was housed. In the 19th century, it was very common for magazines, sections of cookbooks, or entire cookbooks to be dedicated to “invalid cookery”, with recipes designed to heal the ill and unwell. At that time, we hadn’t yet seen the advent of modern medicine, and there was a belief that healing happened in the home, these recipes the foundational source of curing (Zandonella-Stannard).

The “Ladies’ Department” contained recipes, cooking and cleaning tips and tricks, gardening tidbits, advice on caring for the sick, and emphasized the knowledge of science in the performance of domestic affairs. This particular issue of The American Agriculturist happens to have a very lengthy article on “Vermicelli and Macaroni,” but it is not in the “Ladies’ Department” as it is geared toward their male audience. While this article details the general ingredients and process of making these pastas, it is intently focused on the machinery needed to mass produce this food item and the business potential for manufacturing pasta in the US on an extensive scale--a man’s work (“Vermicelli and Macaroni”). As is emphasized by the “Ladies’ Department,” a woman’s place was in the home, and their work within that domain was to be considered as important as the public world in which the men worked.

Published in 1861, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management was the definitive guide to running a household in the 19th century, including caring for the ill and unwell. Originally published as 24 newspaper columns written by Isabella Beeton between 1859 and 1861, this book detailed the monumental task and responsibility of running a household ("Beeton's Book of Household Management"). This book was intended for the ever-expanding generation of middle-class women “who, for the first time in history, had not learned household skills from their mothers” (Hughes). Navigating new codes of social superiority and the increased mobility that moved young women away from their families, this book was intended to help them navigate their new lives. As we have seen with many similar books of this era, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management offered an instructional framework for white, upper-middle class women, the actual tasks to be completed by domestic servants employed within the home; on the pulse of frenzied movement among the social classes, this book also outlined the responsibilities required of middle-class women operating on much smaller budgets and performing these tasks themselves, eager to be prepared for life on the next rung of the social ladder.

Beeton was one of many to boost this fashion of invalid cookery, herself echoing Hannah Glasse’s 1747 cookbook, The Art of Cookery. Some other cookbooks of this elk included Susan Anna Brown’s The Invalid’s Tea-Tray (1885), Mary Boland’s A Handbook of Invalid Cooking (1893) and Fannie Farmer’s Food and Cookery for the Sick and Convalescent (1904). Cooking for the sick emphasized: 1) food that was nourishing, 2) food that would not strain digestive organs, 3) food that was pleasant to the eye and taste (Beeton 1226). Knowing what we know about food in modern times, I can confidently say that bread jelly seemed like none of those things, though I certainly understand its value based on beliefs and understandings of health and nutrition in the 19th century.

At the time this recipe was recorded, bread was still being made in the home, by and large, and I imagine there was general knowledge surrounding the standard size of “roll or loaf”. I, however, certainly do not possess that knowledge. This bread jelly recipe included measurements for almost all its ingredients, the only questionable measurement being for the bread. The recipe called for a “wheaten roll or loaf” cut into slices. I made my best educated guess and used half a loaf of 2021 store bought wheat bread (the only thing I know with great confidence is that today’s loaf of bread is much larger than it was in 1849).

Ingredients for bread jelly.

While it is of no surprise that bread is used in this recipe, note that it calls for the use of a “wheaten” roll. In the 19th century, bread was a staple food item believed to be very nutritious. Wheat or wheaten bread was of greatest popularity, considered to be the easiest to digest and to contain the greatest amount of nutrients. Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (known as Carl von Linné after his ennoblement) and his followers in the 18th and 19th centuries praised bread for its centrality in diet and its versatile role in both health and disease (Räsänen). Bread was believed to be suitable for all temperaments, speaking to the then popular Galenic theory revolving around the balance of the four humours (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile) in the body with sustenance (hot and wet, cold and wet, hot and dry, cold and dry). It is, therefore, no wonder that bread was a common key ingredient in recipes for the sick.

I read my fair share of jelly recipes while researching. Jellies found great acclaim among foods for the sick as they were considered easy to digest and could pack a great deal of nutrients in almost liquid form, “fit to be taken at once into the body without any work for the feeble digestion of the invalid” (Beeton 1230). With an emphasis on immaculate and artful food presentation to encourage the appetite of the ill, these jellies (often made with gelatin) also lent themselves to being beautifully molded, a true feast for the eyes. This bread jelly didn’t quite fit the mold, so to speak. It resembled chunky beige mush, reminiscent of oatmeal but lacking the incredibly underestimated and pleasant symmetry that oats boast.

I was rather shocked to see the addition of one pound (yes, an entire sixteen ounces) of white sugar included in this recipe. The end of the 17th into the 18th century saw the emergence of a definitive “anti-sugar” trend, with the excess consumption of sugar considered to be not only a concern for health and certain ailments (scurvy, for example) but also altogether immoderate and, thus, improper and immoral (Fischler 88). This recipe clearly missed that anti-sugar wave. It was a trend that was short-lived, however, as new and more specific uses of sugar kept within well-defined boundaries were developed. It is of the utmost important to remember that the prevalence and mass commodification of sugar was the direct result of “the establishment of an enormous market in enslaved laborers who had no way to opt out of the treacherous work” (Muhammad). Before the sugar slave trade, sugar was an exotic item, used sparingly as a spice, a medicine, and a sweetener for palates of the elite. The establishment of the sugar slave trade saw sugar shift from being a luxury of the aristocracy to a common good consumed by the masses. In Sidney Mintz’s Sweetness and Power, he argues that the mass consumption of sugar turned it from a condiment into a “real” food, even a “necessity” (Mintz). It is for all these reasons that using one pound of sugar was commonplace in this 19th century recipe for bread jelly. 

A quick aside: though there is not much evidence to indicate that sugar was a specifically “womanly” food, sugar was considered “light and delicate”, words which were directly associated with femininity in the 19th century. I find it equally as interesting that the use of sugar in healing during this time weaves sickness and femininity together, both of these things united in their perception as “weak”. Food for thought, if you will.

Blandness was another central fixture in foods for the sick, as spices at this time were considered to be “stimulants” and could impact the already sensitive and compromised condition of the internal organs. Spices, if included in these recipes, were added sparingly. This bread jelly recipe seemed particularly bold, calling for the addition of not only a small amount of spice (one ounce of cinnamon) but alcohol as well (four ounces of red wine). Cinnamon was commonly used medicinally to cure gastrointestinal upset and to stimulate appetite. Alcohol--especially champagne, sherry, and red and white wine--was also frequently used medicinally, though growing questions were emerging about the morality of its use and its actual health benefits. Small amounts of alcohol were believed to stimulate heart action and assist gastric digestion (Farmer 65). At five ounces total, the small addition of cinnamon and red wine added a touch of color and flavor to an overwhelmingly anemic dish. 

If you were questioning the nutritional value of this recipe, look no further than the affirmation embedded in the recipe: “Very nutritious.” Is it just me or does it feel a bit like this plug predates modern influencers? I digress. All kidding aside, this was an important marker, a way for women to “vet” these recipes and to understand when and how to use these foods like jellies to cure illness. One of other jelly recipes in the “Jellies for the Sick” column, for example, specified, “Given in weakness of the stomach, dysentery, and diarrhoea” (Jellies for the Sick). Though consultation with a physician was advised if flavorings were desired to be varied or omitted, women were essentially expected to be nurses and to heal through food.

I can’t say that bread jelly filled me with confidence as a healer, nor do I think I would ever consider it nutritious or healing (the sweetness actually gave me a stomach ache). But there is so much more that we know now that we didn’t know then. Honoring my understanding and interpretation of this recipe, I can also appreciate the great dedication to healing and the incredible care work that went into invalid cookery. Perhaps by doing something as silly as making bread jelly from 1849, some light can be shed on the largely invisible and incredibly powerful work of many, many “ladies’ departments.”

Sources:

Stefanie Goldberg
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