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Pineapple Punch
Grate one fresh pine or use a quart can of the preserved, grated apple, or chop fine one can of the sliced pineapple. Add to this at least one quart syrup from any preferred fruit, preserved or fresh (as canned raspberries, cherries, fresh strawberries, or oranges, etc.), also a half dozen each of lemons and oranges, unless the latter have been used with the pineapple, when substitute lime or grape-fruit in sufficient proportion. The citrus fruit juice prepared, may be squeezed out and the pulp allowed to remain in the fruit or may be sliced across very thin. Over this pour a hot syrup made as for ices (see Introductory Recipes) and let stand about three hours when strain and add a half gallon of ice water and shaved ice. (The preserved fruit added need not be strained out or, if preferred, fresh, diced, or sliced fruit may be substituted.)
A large-format fruit punch built on the old proportions rather than exact measures — the quantities are elastic by design, and the author expects you to taste as you go. It scales to a party bowl, not a pitcher.
- What it makesAt least a quart of fruit syrup, roughly three cups of citrus juice and half a gallon of ice water, plus the hot syrup, fruit and ice, comes to something like 5 quarts of finished punch — thirty or more small punch-cup servings, depending how generous the syrup is.
- "One fresh pine"One whole fresh pineapple, grated on a box grater over a bowl so none of the juice is lost. The canned alternative is a quart (about 4 cups) of crushed or sliced pineapple with its liquid.
- The "grated apple" lineProbably a printer's slip for grated pineapple, since the sentence is otherwise listing forms of the same fruit. Adding apple would do no harm, but it appears not to be what the recipe intends.
- Hot syrup made as for icesThe cross-reference points to the book's own Introductory Recipes; check it there. It will be a plain boiled sugar syrup, though period ice syrups range from roughly equal parts sugar and water up to two parts sugar. Judge the amount by taste, since the fruit syrup already brings its own sweetness.
- Why the syrup goes on hotHot syrup poured over the grated pineapple and citrus draws out juice and oils from the pulp and peel during the three-hour stand. That maceration is the flavour of the drink; skipping it gives you sweetened juice.
- Citrus in quantitySix lemons and six oranges yield roughly 1 cup lemon juice and 1½ to 2 cups orange juice. Grapefruit substitutes at about one grapefruit per two oranges; limes are sharper, so use them more like lemons.
- Strain, then chillStrain after the three hours and add the ice water and shaved ice only at serving time. Ice added early dilutes the punch to nothing by the time the bowl is half empty.
- Fresh pineapple and dairyRaw pineapple contains bromelain, which prevents gelatin from setting and can turn milk or cream bitter or broken. Neither is called for here, but if you want a milk-based or jellied version, use canned fruit, which has been heated enough to destroy the enzyme.
Punch is often traced to the Hindi pānch, five, for the five elements of the original East India Company drink — spirit, sugar, citrus, water and spice — though the derivation is disputed, with a rival account deriving the word from "puncheon"; by the turn of the twentieth century American cookbooks had thoroughly domesticated it as a wholly fruit-based drink for receptions, church socials and temperance entertaining, where the bowl was the centrepiece. Its confident offer of "a quart can of the preserved" pineapple is telling: canned pineapple was by then available to the home cook. The looseness of the instructions here is characteristic of fruit-cookery books of the era, which assumed the reader could balance sweet against sour by tasting rather than by measuring.