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PINEAPPLE WATER (a refreshing summer beverage)
Take a moderate-sized pineapple; pare and slice it, and pound it in a mortar to a pulp. Put this into a bowl with the strained juice of a large fresh lemon, and pour over it a pint of boiling syrup made in the proportion of one pound of sugar to a pint of water. Cover the jug which contains the liquid, and leave it in a cool place for two hours or more. Strain through a napkin, put two pints of cold spring water with it, and serve. Probable cost, pineapples, 1s. 6d. to 2s. Sufficient for three pints of pineapple water.
A straightforward fruit syrup diluted to drinking strength, and it holds up well. The main adjustments are equipment and sweetness.
- Pounding the fruitA mortar was the usual way to break down fibrous pineapple flesh. A blender or food processor does the same job in seconds; pulse rather than liquidise, since you want pulp, not foam.
- The syrupOne pound of sugar to one pint of water is a heavy syrup, roughly 450 g sugar to 570 ml water. Bring it to a boil to dissolve, then pour it over the pulp while still hot so it draws out the juice.
- SweetnessThree pints finished with a pint of that syrup is markedly sweeter than modern palates expect, and modern commercial varieties are generally sweet. Making the syrup at half the sugar, or diluting with more water at the end, is closer to what a modern drinker wants.
- Why the hot syrup mattersWhy the syrup goes on hot -- Fresh pineapple contains bromelain, which will not set gelatine and gives a prickling sensation on the tongue in quantity; heat deactivates it. The recipe's boiling syrup will take some of the edge off, so follow it rather than using cold syrup.
- StrainingA napkin means a square of clean linen. Muslin, cheesecloth or a fine nylon sieve all work; press the pulp gently rather than wringing it, or the drink goes cloudy.
- Steeping and chillingTwo hours in a cool larder is what the recipe assumes. Two hours in the refrigerator is fine, and the drink is better still left overnight before straining.
- Yield and servingThree pints, about 1.7 litres, or eight to ten glasses. Serve over ice with a slice of lemon; it also takes well to sparkling water in place of some of the still.
- The cost note"1s. 6d. to 2s." is one shilling and sixpence to two shillings for the pineapple, a price signal for the original reader rather than an instruction.
Pineapples reached British tables long before they were affordable. Through the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries they were raised in heated pineries on great estates, at such expense that a single fruit was, by an often-repeated account, hired as a centrepiece and returned uneaten. What changed was shipping: regular steamer traffic from the West Indies and later the Azores brought fresh fruit into London markets in quantity, and by the time Cassell's was compiled a pineapple at eighteenpence to two shillings was a luxury but no longer a marvel. Recipes like this one belong to that moment, when a household cook could treat pineapple as an ingredient to be pounded up for a jug of summer drink rather than a trophy to be displayed. The method itself is older than the fruit's cheapness, being the standard way of making any fruit water or sherbet: pulp, sugar syrup, lemon for sharpness, a rest, a strain, and dilution to strength.