Ambrosia
Six sweet oranges, peeled and sliced (seeds and as much of the core as possible taken out), one pine-apple peeled and sliced (the canned is equally good), and one large cocoa-nut grated; alternate the layers of orange and pine-apple with grated cocoa-nut, and sprinkle pulverized sugar over each layer. Or, use six oranges, six lemons, and two cocoa-nuts, or only oranges and cocoa-nuts, prepared as above--Mrs. Theo. Brown.
A layered fruit dish that needs no cooking, only careful prep and a few hours in the cold. The proportions are forgiving; the texture depends almost entirely on how the coconut is handled.
- The coconut is the hingeOne large fresh coconut, cracked, peeled of its brown skin and grated fine, gives roughly 3 to 4 cups. Packaged sweetened flake is far coarser and much sweeter; if you use it, cut the sugar sharply or the dish turns cloying.
- Pulverized sugarIn period usage a finely ground sugar, close to what we now call confectioners' or powdered sugar, fine enough to dissolve on contact with the fruit juices. Superfine (caster) sugar works as well, and without the cornstarch that modern confectioners' sugar contains.
- Cut the oranges properlyThe recipe says peeled and sliced, but supreming the oranges out of their membranes gives a cleaner result and keeps the pith bitterness out. Work over a bowl and add the caught juice to the dish.
- Canned pineappleThe book already allows it. Drain it well, or the syrup pools at the bottom and thins the sugar into a slurry.
- The lemon variantSix oranges to six lemons is very sharp by modern taste, and lemon segments are tough and seedy. Two lemons' worth of juice and zest scattered through the layers gets the same brightness.
- Rest it coldNo timing is given. Assemble, cover, and chill two to four hours so the sugar dissolves and the layers settle. Longer than a day and the coconut goes limp and the orange weeps.
- YieldAs written this fills a large glass bowl and serves eight to ten as a dessert course.
Ambrosia belongs to the American South's long love affair with the winter orange, and it appears in Buckeye Cookery (1877) at a moment when such a dish was becoming possible for an Ohio household: Florida citrus moving north by steamer and rail, and whole coconuts arriving in northern markets from Caribbean trade. Canned pineapple, which the recipe already treats as an acceptable substitute, was a comparatively new convenience. The name borrows the food of the Greek gods, a bit of parlor grandeur typical of nineteenth-century dessert naming, and the dish's status as a Christmas and Thanksgiving fixture is generally traced to the same seasonal citrus supply.