Ask the Past: Energy boost
I recently started a new gym routine, and I'm enjoying it, but it's wearing me out. I am tired and hungry all the time, and I get really grumpy in the afternoons. I don't drink coffee after 2. What else can you recommend for a quick energy boost that will fill me up?
Have you considered eating more pigeons? Here's the entry from Mrs Beeton's Household Management (1907):
THE PIGEON (Fr. pigeon).— This familiar bird is widely distributed over the world, and some species are found even in the Arctic regions. The true pigeons or Columbidae are represented by the stock-dove; the ring-dove or cushat is the largest British species. Pigeons in general are arboreal in their habits, and build their nests in high places. Their food consists chiefly of grain. The note of the pigeon is the well-known "cooing." From the wild or rock pigeon the numerous domestic varieties are derived. The flesh of the pigeon is savoury, delicate and stimulating.
She gives a number of pigeon recipes, but most of them look like they are quite time-consuming. If you need a quick pigeon pick-me-up, you're probably best with her recipe for Pigeon Curry:
Ingredients. — 2 pigeons, 2 ozs. of butter, 3/4 of a pint of curry-sauce, boiled rice.
Method. — Make the sauce as directed, strain, replace in the stewpan, and keep hot until required. Divide each pigeon into 4 quarters, fry them in hot butter until well-browned, and drain them free from fat. Put them into the sauce, let the stewpan stand for about 1/2 an hour, where its contents will remain just below simmering point, then serve with plainly-boiled rice handed round at the same time.
Time. To cook in the sauce, about 1/2 an hour. Average Cost, pigeons, 2s. 6d. to 3s. Sufficient for 4 or 5 persons.
If you think you'll find it hard to track down pigeons, or if you just can't stomach eating them, then The Cook's Own Book and Housekeeper's Register (1833) suggests sausages instead:
Sausages are as welcome boiled with roasted poultry or veal, or boiled tripe; so are ready-dressed German sausages; and a convenient, easily digestible, and invigorating food for the aged, and those whose teeth are defective.
This recipe for Cherry Soup from The Club House Cook Book (1916) might also be useful, at least during cherry season, although like Mrs Beeton's pigeon recipes, it will take a while to cook, so you'll need to plan ahead:
For this most invigorating hot weather soup sweet or sour cherries may be used ; preferably sour; 1 quart stoned cherries, 1 quart water, sugar to taste. Boil until cherries are transparent; thicken by adding 1 heaping tablespoonful of corn starch moistened with cold water. Boil until clear and serve piping hot to get best tonic effects. Not to be despised ice cold. This quantity will serve 8 persons.
And finally, if none of that suits, you could consider this advice from the 24 May 1937 edition of the Cromwell Argus:
According to Dr. William Brady, noted authority on health and hygiene, sugar is the best fuel for energy. Quickly digested and easily oxidised in the body, it yields immediate energy.
“By energy,” he says, “we mean work, muscle work, whether play, labor, athletic contest or running away from danger. The healthy young child, growing and playing hard as a healthy young child must, needs and should have plenty of sugar. Sugar is not only food for muscle energy. It sustains the heart. The heart is also a muscle.”
Thus, to keep your children fit, especially during winter’s rigours, give them plenty of wholesome chocolate. Recollect its exceptionally high nutritive value. One pound of milk chocolate, for example, represents a food value of 2,615 calories, compared with 214 of milk, 594 of eggs, and 960 of beef steak.
I'm sure that will help.