When I wonder how coffee was made a long time ago I get this picture in my head. A couple of cowboys are sitting around a campfire in the deep dark night. One cowboy who is quietly settled in pours some fireside coffee into a tin cup and then jokes about the grains settling in the bottom as he hands it to the lone traveler who just arrived.
Danny, my husband, is currently reading a book entitled,"He Fell in Love With His Wife" by Edward Payson Roe. The book was published in 1886. It can be found on the website BytheFireplace.com. In chapter 5 the author describes how one man liked his coffee:
"Yes, the kettle's boiling all right. First scald out the coffeepot--put three-quarters of a cup of ground coffee into the pot, break an egg into it, so; pour on the egg and coffee half a cup of cold water and stir it all up well, this way. Next pour in about a pint of boiling water from the kettle, set the pot on the stove and let it--the coffee, I mean--cook twenty minutes, remember, not less than twenty minutes. I'll be back to breakfast by that time. Now you know just how I want my coffee, don't you?"
Danny and I are not sure why the egg had to be there. Danny figured it gave the coffee a certain flavor. I sure am glad we don't have to boil our coffee for twenty minutes anymore.
I remember my dad always drank coffee early in the morning before our large noisome household awoke. To the best of my knowledge my mother would make his coffee with two spoonfuls of sugar and a little cream skimmed off the top of the fresh milk we got from the dairy about three miles down the road. I just wonder what he would have thought of cooking an egg in his coffee!