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Jelly, Jam, Etc
Use the tart varieties or those somewhat under-ripe and proceed as for other such preparations. The jelly resulting is particularly beautiful.
Pomegranate wine may be made with successful results and the fruit, seeds removed, served cooked, or fresh, with flavouring of orange blossom-or rose-water, or cocoanut and sugar.
CHAPTER XXVII THE AVOCADO, "AGUACATE," OR ALLIGATOR PEAR (Persea Gratissima: Lauracea) T HIS favourite West Indian and Southern American fruit in form resembles a pear somewhat, hence its popular name. It varies in size from that of a large pear, upward. Its seed occupies rather large space, but the melting pulp makes up for this in richness. It is called additionally, "Palto" (in Brazil) and "Midshipman's" or Vegetable Butter. Its wealth of oil is given out to best advantage of fruit and eater in salad form. The pulp is generally left adhering to the rind in serving.
A Cuban method of preparation is as follows: The fruit is halved before sending to the table, and cut across with a sharp knife into little grooves into which the dressing will run and thus permeate the flesh of the "pear." Then salt, red pepper, and possibly a little cinnamon are dusted over it. Next, two mustard-spoonfuls of prepared mustard, a tablespoonful of vinegar, and two of oil are poured into the halves, a piece of ice placed thereon, and the fruit set on ice that it may be thoroughly chilled before serving.
Another method, in vogue in Mexico, is to serve the fruit uncut, to be halved at the table. The pulp is then rubbed smooth as butter with a spoon, and lime or lemon juice added, with oil (one tablespoon of acid to three of oil) and a dash of pepper and salt. By some the addition of a little sugar is preferred. This is eaten with thin slices of bread.
A third method of making salad with the avocado is to combine it with cress, a little chopped onion, radishes, cucumbers, lettuce, beets-in varying combinations, but always with the French dressing of oil, vinegar, salt, and red pepper.
Still another way is to use the smooth-rubbed pulp with a little oil (in place of the oil added to the yolk of egg for mayonnaise), and with pepper, salt, and lemon or lime juice to taste, serving with crisp lettuce.
The sliced fruit is sometimes used as a garnish for meat dishes and is also served with wine, sugar, and spices; may be peeled, sliced, and fried, or the mashed pulp used for sandwiches with lemon juice, pepper, and salt.
CHAPTER XXVIII
The page opens mid-thought: the first two sentences finish the guava and pomegranate chapter, and the avocado material proper begins at Chapter XXVIII. What follows is less a single recipe than four working methods for dressing an avocado, all of which still hold up.
- Mustard-spoonfulA mustard spoon was a small condiment spoon, roughly half a teaspoon. Two of them is about a teaspoon of prepared mustard, which is a modest amount against a tablespoon of vinegar and two of oil.
- Red pepperIn a book of this date "red pepper" means cayenne, not paprika and not sweet peppers. A pinch is enough in a dressing built on three tablespoons of liquid.
- The dressing ratioThe Mexican method's one part acid to three parts oil is the standard vinaigrette proportion and is the line worth remembering. The avocado itself is already fat, so erring toward more lime juice than the recipe suggests is defensible.
- The iceSetting a lump of ice in the dressed half was a practical trick before mechanical refrigeration, but the meltwater thins the dressing. Chill the fruit in the refrigerator instead and leave the ice out.
- Scoring the halvesCutting the exposed flesh into little grooves so the dressing runs in (the book says only "cut across", not necessarily a grid) is the one instruction here that genuinely changes the result. Cut down to but not through the skin, which stays on as the serving vessel.
- RipenessThe book assumes fruit picked and ripened locally. Supermarket avocados are sold hard; leave them at room temperature until they yield to gentle pressure at the stem end, then refrigerate for up to two days.
- The mayonnaise variantThe fourth method uses mashed avocado with a little oil and citrus in place of the oil beaten into egg yolk. The wording is ambiguous as to whether the yolk is kept, and the result will behave as a loose purée rather than a true mayonnaise; make it within an hour of serving, as it browns.
- YieldOne half per person as a first course, or a whole fruit's worth of mashed pulp for two to three sandwiches.
The avocado reached English-language cookbooks under a tangle of names, most of them mangled. Aguacate is the Spanish rendering of the Nahuatl ahuacatl, and "alligator pear" is generally traced to an English corruption of that Spanish word, helped along by the pebbled skin of some varieties. "Midshipman's butter" and "vegetable butter" record how the fruit was eaten aboard ship and in the tropics: spread, not sliced. The botanical name given here, Persea gratissima, has since been superseded by Persea americana. The chapter's placement says a good deal about the period's classification: the avocado was firmly a fruit, and the author has to explain at some length that it belongs with oil, salt and cayenne rather than with sugar, while still allowing that some prefer it sweetened or served with wine and spices. The recipes are frankly borrowed from Cuba and Mexico because that is where the knowledge was.