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Oranges with Cocoanut
Here is a pretty way to vary the usual serving of "Ambrosia," as the sliced, cocoanut-sprinkled orange is often termed: Halve the unpeeled fruit, then with a small, sharp knife remove the pulp from the skins. Place the pulp in a bowl and mix with fresh cocoanut if possible to secure it (though the desiccated form, soaked a few moments in milk may serve the purpose), and sugar, with a dash of lemon juice. Replace in the shells and serve each half on a small fruit plate garnished with some form of dainty leaves.
An assembly job rather than a cooked dish, but a few details in the 1900s wording are worth translating before you start.
- Getting the pulp out cleanlyHalving the orange through the equator and working a grapefruit knife or a small serrated paring knife between pulp and pith gives the neatest shells. Segment membranes will come with the pulp; if you want the smoother texture the recipe implies, cut the segments free of the membrane before mixing.
- Fresh cocoanutFresh grated coconut means a whole mature nut, cracked, the meat pried out and grated on a box grater. Frozen grated coconut from a Latin or South Asian grocer is the closest substitute and needs no soaking.
- The desiccated versionThe soak in milk is presumably there to rehydrate dried coconut. Modern sweetened flaked coconut is already moist and sugary, so you may want to skip the milk and cut the added sugar; use unsweetened flake if you want to follow the recipe as written.
- Sugar and lemonNo quantities are given. Start with a teaspoon of sugar and half a teaspoon of lemon juice per orange, taste, and adjust to the fruit you have.
- Don't let it sitOnce cut and sugared, the pulp weeps and the shells soften. Assemble no more than half an hour ahead and keep it cold; the coconut is best stirred in at the last moment so it stays distinct.
- Yield and serviceOne orange gives two servings. The recipe does not say which leaves; mint or lemon leaves would suit, and confirm anything from the garden is food-safe before it touches the plate.
Ambrosia — sliced orange layered with sugar and grated coconut — turns up in American cookbooks from the later 1860s onward, with Barringer's Dixie Cookery of 1867 an early instance, and is closely associated with the South, where imported coconuts and Florida citrus both arrived through Gulf and Atlantic ports and became fixtures of Christmas tables. The name borrows the food of the Greek gods, a bit of menu flattery. What dates this particular version is the fuss over fresh versus desiccated coconut: shredded dried coconut had been sold in packets since the late nineteenth century and was convenient enough to be everywhere, but the recipe still asks for a fresh nut "if possible to secure it." Serving the mixture back in its own hollowed shell reflects the same period taste for individual portions dressed up with leaves and paper frills, a presentation trick that cost nothing but a little knife work.