Posset : Caudle
A posset is a hot milk drink, popular in the Middle Ages for its supposed medicinal properties. Wine or ale was added to the milk, which curdled it, and the mixture was usually spiced. It was considered a specific remedy for some minor illnesses, such as a cold, and a general remedy for others, as even today people drink hot milk to help them get to sleep. A caudle was a later development that added a thickening agent -- usually some kind of grain (a cereal or "gruel") but sometimes eggs -- that also increased its nutritional value. Egg nog belongs to the same family of milk punches but is seldom served hot now.The preparation of the drink could be elaborate, and the word "posset" became a verb, meaning to coddle or pamper someone by taking trouble to make them comfortable. Some scholars trace the verb "coddle" to "caudle", but others assign them different derivations.
"Posset sets" for mixing and serving possets were popular gifts, and valuable ones (often made of silver) were heirlooms. Such sets contained a posset "pot", or "bowl", or "cup" to serve it in, a container for mixing it in, and usually various containers for the ingredients, as well as spoons. The one the Spanish ambassador gave Queen Mary I of England and King Philip II of Spain when they became betrothed in 1554 is believed to have been made by Benvenuto Cellini and is of crystal, gold, precious gems, and enamel. It is on display at Hatfield House in England and consists of a large, stemmed, covered bowl, two open, stemmed vessels, a covered container, three spoons, and two forks.
It spreads nor'-west by No-man.html">Man's Land --
To where the cattle-stations lie
The strange Gulf country know --
The big lean bullocks go/go.html">go;
Like some old ocean's bed,
Round fifteen hundred head.
And west of named and numbered days
Jack Cornstalk and the Ne'er-do-well,
They veil their eyes from moon and stars,
Sad memories sleep as years go round
Through years of flood and drought,
Their own salvation out:
Stiff-lipped and haggard-eyed --
Where boundary-riders ride.
The College Wreck who sunk beneath,
Tramps West in mateship with the man
'Tis there where on the barren track
Where saint and sinner, side by side,
The Outcasts of the West --
And broken hearts that jest!
The grit to see it through!
And -- I am proud of you!
The Arab to true desert sand,
The Flax-stick turns to Maoriland,
And this old fact comes home to me --
However barren it may be,
True mateship after all,
Are hanging on the wall;
I'd tramp to sunsets grand
In Never-Never Land.
[End of original text.]
A note.html">Note on the Author and the Text:
on 17 June 1867. Although he has since become the most acclaimed
his "real" work was whatever he could find, often painting houses,
from memories of his childhood, especially at Pipeclay/Eurunderee.
were taken from the better class of diggers and bushmen he knew there.
for it is interesting to note a number of descriptions and phrases
He died in Sydney, 2 September 1922. Much of his writing was for periodicals,
.
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