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Cocoanut, Apple and Celery Salad
1 envelope powdered 3 apples, sliced gelatine 1 cup celery, sliced 2½ cups hot water 3 lemons 1/2 cup sugar Crisp lettuce leaves 1 cup Dromedary Mayonnaise dressing Cocoanut Dissolve gelatine in water, cool and add sugar, cocoanut, apples, celery and strained lemon juice. Set aside in a cool place, stir occasionally, and when beginning to set divide into small wet molds. Turn out when firm and serve on crisp lettuce leaves with mayonnaise dressing.
The ingredient list was printed in two narrow columns and has come through jumbled; read it as gelatine, hot water, sugar, cocoanut, apples, celery, lemons, lettuce and mayonnaise. A few adjustments make this behave on a modern table.
- Untangling the listThe "21½ cups hot water" is a column-break artifact for 2½ cups. The 1 cup of Dromedary Cocoanut has been separated from its measure, and the mayonnaise is a serving accompaniment rather than a measured cup stirred into the mold.
- Gelatine strengthOne envelope of modern powdered gelatine (about 1/4 oz, 2¼ tsp) firmly sets 2 cups of liquid. Against 2½ cups of water plus lemon juice and a heavy load of solids, the result will be a soft, barely-standing mold. Two envelopes gives something that unmolds cleanly.
- Dissolving it properlyPowdered gelatine of this era was meant to be softened in a little cold water first, then dissolved in the hot. Sprinkling dry granules straight into hot water gives lumps that never fully disperse.
- Acid and sugarThree lemons yield roughly 1/3 to 1/2 cup of juice, which is sharp against only 1/2 cup sugar. Taste the cooled liquid before adding fruit and adjust; the sweetness reads much flatter once chilled.
- CoconutDromedary shredded cocoanut was sold moist, and may well have been sweetened. Sweetened flake is a reasonable stand-in; if you use unsweetened desiccated coconut, soak it in a few tablespoons of the warm gelatine liquid and expect to add sugar.
- Keeping the apples paleSlice the apples last and toss them in some of the strained lemon juice immediately. Suspended in a clear jelly, browned apple shows badly. Firm, tart varieties hold their shape; a mealy apple collapses.
- The stirring is not optionalChilling to the point where the jelly is syrupy and just beginning to set, with occasional stirring, is what keeps apple and celery evenly distributed. Pour it in while thin and everything floats to what will become the top.
- UnmoldingWet or lightly oil the molds. To turn out, dip each in warm water for five seconds only, loosen the edge with a fingertip, and invert onto the lettuce; a long soak melts the surface to slush.
- YieldRather more than a quart once the three apples, the celery and the cocoanut are counted; plan on filling a good many more small molds than a single quart would suggest.
This comes from a recipe book issued to sell Dromedary cocoanut and dates, a brand generally associated with the Hills Brothers Company of New York, which built its business on packaged dates and moist shredded coconut at a time when both were novelties in a home pantry. The dish itself belongs squarely to the American gelatine-salad vogue of the early twentieth century, when commercially packaged powdered gelatine made molded work easy and "salad" came to mean almost anything cold, sweetish and served on a lettuce leaf with a spoonful of mayonnaise. The pairing of fruit and celery in a sweet jelly, then finished with mayonnaise, looks odd now but was standard: the celery supplied crunch and a saline note, and the dressing was understood as the thing that made the whole a salad rather than a dessert. Booklets like this one existed to demonstrate that a branded ingredient had uses beyond the obvious cake and pudding.