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Melon Surprise
Cut a slice across the top of the smaller melons to serve individually, or the larger ones as liked, so that this slice will form a lid. Scoop out the inside of the melons and fill with nutmeg or canteloupe ice, with wine, or any ice cream or whipped-cream mixture. If the shells are iced some time before and when filled set at once on ice, they may stand thus for some hours (lid replaced). A ribbon may be tied around the whole or knotted at the top.
A shell-and-fill dessert that depends entirely on temperature: everything must be cold before the two halves of the dish meet, or the melon weeps and the filling slumps.
- "Nutmeg" melonNutmeg melon is an older name for the netted muskmelon, essentially what a supermarket sells as cantaloupe. The recipe is offering a choice between two melon sorbets, not between a spice and a fruit.
- "Ice" vs. ice creamA period "ice" is a water ice — fruit puree, sugar syrup, no dairy — closer to sorbet than to sherbet. Ice cream and whipped-cream mixtures are given as alternatives, so any of the three works.
- Choosing the melonsUse small, heavy, evenly netted melons that sit flat, or trim a thin sliver off the base so they do not roll. Small melons of roughly a pound or so suit individual service; a large melon will stretch to several portions, depending on size.
- Icing the shellsThis is the hinge. Scoop, drain the shells cut-side down briefly, then chill them hard -- a spell in the freezer, or buried in ice -- before filling. A room-temperature shell will soften the surface of the filling quickly.
- "Set at once on ice"The original presumably means a bed of ice, as in an icebox. A freezer does the same job, though it is worth pulling the filled melons out shortly before serving so the melon flesh itself is not frozen stiff.
- The wineThe 'with wine' option may mean wine poured into the cavity, presumably a chilled sweet one, or wine spooned over an ice. Only a small quantity per melon; more and it pools.
- Yield and finishFigure one small melon per person. The ribbon is a genuine period touch and still works, but tie it after the melons come out of the cold, since it will absorb condensation.
Fruit hollowed out and returned to the table as its own serving dish was a standing trick of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American entertaining, when the home ice-cream freezer and reliable ice delivery made frozen desserts a domestic rather than a professional matter. Melons are often said to have arrived on the American table first as a fruit course and only later as a vessel, like baskets filled with jelly and scooped pineapples packed with ice. The "surprise" in the name belongs to a whole family of period dishes so titled, all built on something concealed: a lid replaced, a ribbon tied over the join, and the frozen filling discovered only when the guest lifts the top.