Dissolve ½ box of gelatin; chop ¼ pound of dates and mix with 2 ounces of boiled rice, ½ cup of pulverized sugar and 1 teaspoonful of vanilla; then mix the gelatin with 1 pint of whipped cream. Mix all well together and turn into a mold and stand on ice until cold. Sprinkle with chopped nuts. Serve with whipped cream.
A gelatin-set cream mold of the sort that filled American cookbooks once packaged gelatin became cheap and reliable. The instructions assume knowledge the modern cook no longer has, particularly about how gelatin is handled.
- The hinge: dissolve, then cool"Dissolve" is all the recipe says; period practice was to soften granulated gelatin in cold water for a few minutes, then add boiling water (roughly ½ cup of each works here) and stir until clear. It must then cool to barely warm before it meets the whipped cream — poured in hot it will melt the cream, and left too long it sets into lumps that never disperse.
- Half a box of gelatinA box of granulated gelatin of this period is generally reckoned at about an ounce, so half a box is roughly ½ ounce, the equivalent of about 2 modern ¼-ounce envelopes or some 4½ teaspoons. That should hold a mold that unmolds; if you want a softer, spoonable set, use less.
- Pulverized sugarThis is finely ground sugar without the cornstarch found in modern confectioners' sugar. Superfine (caster) sugar is the closer match; ½ cup is around 100 g.
- Two ounces of boiled riceMost likely the weight of the rice after cooking, which is roughly ⅓ cup, plain and unsweetened; the recipe does not specify. Cook it soft and let it cool completely, or it will thin the cream.
- Whipped creamA pint means a pint of liquid cream, which whips to about a quart. Whip to soft peaks only; folding stiff cream into gelatin tends to break it.
- Stand on iceAn icebox instruction. Chill in the refrigerator at least 4 hours, preferably overnight, before unmolding. Dip the mold briefly in warm water to release.
- Dates¼ pound is about ¾ cup chopped once pitted. Modern Medjools are moister than the pressed dates commonly sold at the time, so the mixture will be softer and you may prefer a little less sugar.
- YieldNeeds a mold of at least 1½ quarts; serves six to eight.
Books of this kind — a dish a day, each tagged to a country — sold on the promise of variety rather than authenticity, and "Turkish" in an American cookbook of the period is often said to signal dates, nuts and rose or vanilla perfume rather than any specific Ottoman dish. The real ancestor on the plate is the family of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean rice puddings, but the technique is thoroughly turn-of-the-century American: granulated gelatin, commercialised in the 1890s and later sold in pre-measured envelopes, made molded creams a staple of the home table just as domestic iceboxes became common enough to set them reliably. Dates themselves carried the association, arriving in quantity from North Africa and the Persian Gulf and marketed to American cooks as an exotic sweetmeat.