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Grapefruit Baskets
Cut in two 4 grapefruit. Insert two toothpicks opposite each other on each half. From one-half inch on each side of toothpick cut through the skin around the grapefruit one-fourth inch from the top of each half, leaving skin whole where toothpicks are inserted. Loosen pulp and remove and discard seeds, membrane and toothpicks. Sprinkle pulp of each half with 1 cream peppermint, broken in pieces, and chill. Bring the two strips of skin together above the grapefruit and tie together with Narrow ribbon, for the handle. Insert in the knot a sprig of Flowers, berries or mint, and place on doily on individual serving plates.
This is a garnish exercise more than a cooking one: a grapefruit half turned into a little handled basket for the fruit course. The cutting sequence is the whole recipe, and it reads more clearly once you know what the toothpicks are for.
- What the toothpicks doThey mark and hold the two narrow bridges of peel that become the handle. Push them in horizontally through the rind at opposite sides of the half, then cut the encircling groove only up to a half inch on either side of each pick, so two uncut straps of skin remain. Pull the picks once the flesh is out and the straps are free to lift.
- Cut with a small sharp knife, not a peelerYou are scoring through rind and pith about a quarter inch below the cut face, and the straps need to stay attached at both ends. A paring knife or grapefruit knife gives control; anything wider tears the bridges, and a broken strap cannot be repaired.
- "Loosen pulp and remove"Free each segment from the membrane with a curved grapefruit knife or a serrated grapefruit spoon, and discard the core membrane and pips. The original is compressed: it may mean simply loosening the pulp in place, or lifting the sections out and returning them to the shell.
- Cream peppermintA soft peppermint fondant of the period, essentially a sugar-and-cream patty. A modern soft peppermint cream or one thin after-dinner mint per half works; avoid hard candy or chocolate-coated mints, which will not soften into the juice. The original allows one cream per half, so roughly a teaspoon of crushed modern candy is a comparable amount.
- ChillingThe recipe gives no time: long enough in the refrigerator for the fruit to come up cold, by which point the mint will have begun to soften into the juice. Assemble the ribbon and garnish just before serving.
- Ribbon and garnishUse a washable satin or grosgrain ribbon rather than wired craft ribbon, and tie it loosely enough that the straps are not stressed. If you use flowers, choose ones that are food-safe and unsprayed — violets, rosebuds, mint sprigs — since they sit directly over food.
- YieldFour grapefruit give eight baskets, so one per guest for a table of eight. Pick heavy, thick-skinned fruit; thin rind will not hold a handle.
This comes from the era when the grapefruit half was the standard opening to a luncheon or a formal breakfast in American households — a habit that took hold in the early twentieth century as Florida citrus reached northern markets by rail in quantity. Recipes of the 1910s and 1920s treat the fruit less as something to cook than as something to decorate: sweetened with maraschino, sherry, ginger, candied mint, or, as here, carved into a container for itself. The mint cream is doing double duty, sweetening the fruit while flavoring the juice.