Distilled Milke For A Consumption

This recipe originates from a collection compiled between 1675 and 1750, drawing together prescriptions and culinary wisdom from several women, including Rose Kendall and Elizabeth Clarke. During this era, recipes for the sick—especially those suffering from 'consumption' (now known as tuberculosis)—offered both sustenance and gentle, medicinal comfort. Recipes like this were prescribed as nourishing tonics, with milk and finely chopped chicken distilled into a restorative 'milk water' often sweetened for palatability and, perhaps, to mask richer, meaty flavors. Such preparations reflected the period’s close intertwining of food and medicine, and the belief that distillation could refine and concentrate nourishment.

The recipe was made using a 'glass still pot or limbeck'—early forms of distillation apparatuses. Such stills commonly appeared on well-off kitchen hearths in the 17th and 18th centuries. The pot would be placed over gentle heat, allowing the vapors to rise through a coiled tube or 'worm' and condense, yielding a clear liquid rich with the essence of all its ingredients. In a modern kitchen, you could use a small countertop still, a steam distiller, or even improvise with a large pot, heat-safe bowl, and lid to catch the condensate drip.