Beeton’s 1906 Barley Water with Lemon Peel
Reader ratingsBlanched pearl barley, a little sugar and thin lemon peel, covered with boiling water and left until cold: the quick barley water of Mrs. Beeton’s 1906 book. Alcohol-free.
- Recipe makes
- About 1.1 liters, 4 glasses
- Prep
- Cook
- Total
Includes about 1 hour for the barley water to cool in the covered jug.
Barley water with strips of lemon peel in a glass jug, two tumblers and a bowl of pearl barley.
The story behind the recipe
This barley water is steeped, not boiled: blanched pearl barley, a little sugar and thin lemon peel sit in a covered jug of boiling water until cold. The 1906 edition of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management calls the result “a nutritious, agreeable drink,” and reckons its cost at 1½d. a pint, about 65p today by UK consumer prices (Bank of England).
Filed with the invalid cookery
The recipe, No. 3251, sits in the book’s “Recipes for Invalid Cookery,” and the note under it says what it was for: it was “largely used to dilute milk, thus making it easier of digestion.” The next recipe, No. 3252, begins from cold water instead, with “the juice of 1 lemon (if allowed),” meaning if the doctor allowed it. For a quicker drink still, the book points to “Patent Barley,” a barley flour sold by the packet: “Directions for making it are given with each packet.” In 1896 the drinks writers Frederick and Seymour Davies filed their barley water under “Restorative Drinks.”
Nothing in the 1906 book puts it on a tennis lawn. The bottled lemon barley water linked with Wimbledon came in the 1930s; the summer teas of the 1906 book served iced tea, coffee and claret cup, as What Did People Drink in an Edwardian Country House? sets out.
Read more about this recipe
At home
These amounts double the printed pint to fill a jug for four. Beeton’s “2 or 3 lumps of sugar” weigh about 10 to 14 grams by the book’s own table, six ordinary lumps to the ounce, so the doubled jug takes about 25 grams in more than a liter. That is barely sweet, about a quarter of the sugar in cola. Taste it as printed before adding more.
Pare the lemon thinly, leaving the white pith behind. The quick blanching takes off the dusty first water, and the long soak in the cooling jug draws out the rest, so the drink stays thin and pale. For lemon barley water, stir in the juice of a lemon after straining, as No. 3252 does. An older grain drink from the sickroom is the medieval water gruel, oats simmered with honey.
3251.—BARLEY WATER.
Ingredients.—2 ozs. of pearl barley, 2 or 3 lumps of sugar, the thinly pared rind of ½ a small lemon, 1 pint of boiling water.
Method.—Cover the barley with cold water, boil for 2 minutes, and strain. Place the barley, sugar and lemon-rind in a jug, pour in the boiling water, and cover closely. When cold, strain and use. This forms a nutritious, agreeable drink, and it is also largely used to dilute milk, thus making it easier of digestion.
Time.—1 hour. Average Cost, 1½d.
Recipe makes: About 1.1 liters, 4 glasses
Ingredients
For About 1.1 liters, 4 glasses. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for About 1.1 liters, 4 glasses.
- Pearl barley115 g
- Cold water, to blanch the barley
- Sugar25 g
- Small unwaxed lemon1
- Boiling water1150 ml
- Lemon juice (optional)45 ml
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 115 g pearl barley
- cold water, to blanch the barley
- 25 g sugar
- 1 small unwaxed lemon
- 1150 ml boiling water
- 45 ml lemon juice (optional)
Equipment
Small saucepan
Sieve
Large heatproof jug with a lid or a plate to cover it
Kettle
Vegetable peeler
Instructions
Rinse the pearl barley in a sieve, put it in a small saucepan and cover it with cold water. Bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes, then drain.
Put the barley and the sugar in a large heatproof jug. Pare the zest of the unwaxed lemon thinly with a vegetable peeler, leaving the white pith behind, and add it to the jug.
Pour in the boiling water, stir once to dissolve the sugar, and cover the jug closely with a lid or a plate.
Leave until cold, about 1 hour.
Strain into a clean jug or bottle. Stir in the lemon juice now, if you are using it.
Refrigerate and serve cold.
Nutrition
25calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- About 1.1 liters, 4 glasses
- Servings
- 4
Estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for sugar and lemon juice, for four glasses; barley steeped in hot water, not boiled, gives up very little.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
This is twice the 1906 recipe, which makes one pint. Keep about 100 g of barley to each liter of boiling water.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
Barley water is a cooked-grain drink. The UK Food Standards Agency’s guidance is to cool cooked food and get it into the fridge promptly; keep this one in the fridge and drink it within 2 days, which is our limit, not Beeton’s.
Barley contains gluten.
Beeton’s 2 ounces of barley are about 57 g, doubled here to 115 g, and her pint is the Imperial pint of 568 ml, doubled to 1,150 ml. Her rind of half a small lemon, doubled, is the zest of one small lemon.
The drained barley is still good to eat, in a soup or a stew.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
[Isabella Beeton, revised], Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, new edition (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1906), “Barley Water”, No. 3251, p. 1376
Recipe details
- Drink
- Alcohol-free
- Drink family
- Sodas & Soft Drinks
- Region
- British
- Era
- Edwardian
- Source decade
- 1900s
- Base
- Barley & grain
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Season
- Summer