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Cocoanut Ambrosia
2 cups Dromedary Cocoanut 1/2 cup sugar 1 cup chopped mixed nut meats 2 rounds chopped canned pineapple 4 oranges 2 bananas 1 cup candied cherries Whipped cream Skin and dice the bananas and oranges. Put the ingredients in layers in pretty glass dish. Chill and serve with whipped cream. a
An assembled fruit dessert with no cooking, so the only real decisions are the coconut you buy and how long it sits before serving.
- Dromedary CocoanutThe Hills Brothers product was a dried shredded coconut, generally far less sweet and moist than the bagged sweetened flake sold today. Unsweetened desiccated or flaked coconut is the closer match; if you use sweetened flakes, cut the half cup of sugar back to a tablespoon or two.
- "2 rounds" of pineappleTwo rings from a can, chopped. Modern 20 oz cans hold about ten slices, so this is roughly a third to half a cup of fruit.
- Skinning the oranges"Skin" here means removing peel, pith and membrane. Cut the segments free over a bowl so the juice falls into the dish, since that juice is what dissolves the sugar and moistens the coconut.
- Chilling timeThe recipe says only to chill. About an hour works well: long enough for the coconut to soften and the sugar to draw juice, short enough that the bananas do not brown or the whole thing turn watery. Add the bananas last if you want to hold it longer.
- Candied cherriesGlacé cherries, the dense sugared kind sold for fruitcake, not maraschino. Rinse and dry them if they are sticky, or they will bleed pink into the coconut layers.
- LayeringThe recipe fixes no order, only that the ingredients go in layers; coconut top and bottom with the wet fruit between works well. A straight-sided glass bowl shows the bands, which is why a pretty glass dish is specified.
- Whipped creamServed alongside or spooned over at the table, not folded in. Unsweetened or barely sweetened cream is better here, as the dessert itself carries plenty of sugar.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield; the quantities suggest six to eight. It does not keep past a day.
Ambrosia takes its name from the food of the Greek gods, and in American cookery its core is oranges layered with grated coconut and sugar, though printed recipes varied, with pineapple and other fruit appearing early on. The dish shows up in Southern receipt books by the late 1860s — Dixie Cookery, 1867 — and it settled early into the role it still holds as a Christmas and holiday dessert. The version here looks like a commercial elaboration of the plainer form, since a packaged-coconut booklet would have every reason to add pineapple, bananas, nuts and candied cherries. Dromedary, a Hills Brothers brand best remembered for dates, sold shredded coconut in tins and cartons and promoted it through small recipe pamphlets of exactly this kind, where the brand name is written into the ingredient list so the reader cannot forget which coconut to buy.