Friday, 22 February 2008

Elixir of Life

One of the girls at work showed me the recipe below from the collection of her granny. It was written with the old pen and ink, in that lovely copperplate script which no kid worth their salt these days would recognise.


ELIXIR OF LIFE

Take six fresh eggs and six lemons. Put eggs in a basin, but don’t break them. Peel lemons and squeeze the juice over the eggs. Cover with a cloth. Turn eggs every day. Let them soak until the shells are dissolved, then beat well together with one pint of rum and one pound of honey.
Strain and bottle.
Dose – only one tablespoon fasting every morning.



Feel like trying it?

Posted on by Rita
6 comments

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am so going to try that, if not for anything but curiosity. I have never dissolved an egg shell, it appeals to the boy in me.
If it works then maybe we could pass this on to Pitts poultry, although I here the egg dissolves the shell and then your bowls from the inside..

Cartouche

Anonymous said...

One is quite lost for words, Rita.
Ho, ho, ho Cartouche!
Ten bob to the first person to try it!

Anonymous said...

You sure the recipe didn't start with
" Bubble bubble toil & trouble?"

Rita said...

Cartouche - I await your experiment with much excitement!
Sir G - that's a first - you lost for words.
Gobbler - you crack me up! But I'll concede that it sounded to me that it SHOULD start off with those words!
Seriously, after I'd had a good laugh at this odd remnant from the olden days, I actually thought that the combination of those ingredients contain the things that you traditionally would take for various home cures for many illnesses, both physical and emotional. Honey, eggs, lemon, rum. Nothing harmful in there. Great for curing sore throats.

Why - it might just add many years to your life - until you get run down by a car!

Lonie Polony said...

Why do you have to peel the lemons before you squeeze them? And why do old people always swear by rum/gin/brandy as the secret of longevity?

Rita said...

Bloody good question, Lonie. I haven't the faintest idea, sorry! And yes, I DID notice the use of alcohol there and the same thought occurred to me as well. As long as the oldies could have a swig of something alcoholic, they swore by it! That must surely account for the popularity and origins of trifle?