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To Properly Pare and Thus Prepare
An almost invariable mistake is made by Northerners in the peeling of this fruit whole and the attempt to remove the eyes with the peel. The pineapple should first be sliced across, rind and all, according to the thickness desired, then each slice taken in turn, in the left hand, held with the rind toward one and pared with the right hand by means of a slim, sharp knife, inserting point and peeling downward, toward one, close to the rind. The eyes may now (left exposed without the hard skin) be easily and quickly removed with none of the usual awkward hacking and loss of juice attendant upon the ordinary method. AS A SIMPLE BREAKFAST OR LUNCHEON DISH Serve the pineapple in either the simple slices, one for each fruit-plate, with or without sugar, as the pine may require, or as follows: Take a fully mature, juicy, small, unpeeled pine, cut off the stem and twist off the top or crown. In the pitted space now exposed drive two slender but stout wooden skewers straight down through the apple until the points appear at the stem end. Pull the skewers through the pine, outward, thus dividing it in half, and then again divide, so that the fruit lies in quarters. This can be done with little loss of juice. Now tie the quarters together with a narrow ribbon, re-insert the crown and place upright on the fruit dish from which it is to be served. Serve by untying the ribbon and placing the quarters on fruit plates. The ordinary small, sharp, silver fruit-knife will dismember the tiny sections of rind so that these little tender squares may be conveyed to the mouth by the fingers quite properly and conveniently. If the pine is in proper condition sugar will not be needed but if a trifle tart the bits may be dipped in sugar placed on the individual plates.
This is a technique page rather than a list of ingredients, and the technique still holds up: slicing the fruit crosswise before peeling wastes far less juice than wrestling a whole pineapple with a knife. A few points of translation for a modern kitchen.
- The hinge: slice first, peel secondCut the whole unpeeled fruit into rounds of the thickness you want, then pare each round individually with the rind facing you, as the author directs. The "eyes" sit just under the skin and, once the hard rind is off and the slice is flat and stable in the hand, lift out easily. A whole-fruit peel forces you to cut deep to chase the eyes, which is where the juice goes.
- "Pine"Throughout this passage pine simply means pineapple, standard usage in nineteenth-century cookbooks and fruit dealers' catalogues.
- Choosing the fruitThe recipe leans entirely on the pineapple being "fully mature" and needing no sugar, which is the only variable that matters. Look for heavy weight for its size, a fragrant base, and leaves that are firm rather than dried. Pineapple does not sweeten after cutting, and the sugar bowl on the plate is the author's admission that a poor fruit cannot be rescued.
- The coreThe skewer method splits the fruit through the fibrous central core, which stays attached to each quarter. Modern eaters usually cut it away; if the pineapple is very ripe the core is edible but noticeably tougher and worth trimming before serving.
- SkewersUse wooden or bamboo skewers, as written; the author asks for them slender but stout, since they must pass through the fruit and then serve as handles to pull it apart rather than to cut it.
- The silver fruit knifeSilver was specified for fruit because carbon steel of the period reacted with acidic juice and left a metallic taste and a stained blade. Any stainless paring knife does the job now.
- BromelainFresh pineapple contains bromelain, which is why prolonged handling leaves fingers and tongue feeling raw, and why fresh pineapple will not set gelatin. Neither affects this dish, but it explains the tingling after a large plateful.
- YieldOne small pineapple quartered serves four as a breakfast or luncheon fruit course; a fruit sliced across yields as many rounds as the chosen thickness allows, one per plate as the author intends.
Pineapple in an American cookbook of this era carried real social weight: the fruit is native to South America, was encountered by Europeans in the Caribbean in the 1490s, and for centuries afterward was so difficult to grow in cold climates that English and Dutch estates built heated pineries to raise single fruits for the table. By the late nineteenth century steamships and rail brought Caribbean and later Hawaiian pineapples north in quantity, and books like this one had to teach an unfamiliar fruit to households encountering it for the first time. The author's jab at "Northerners" is pointed, and the instruction to tie the quarters with a ribbon and replace the crown belongs to the same period's enthusiasm for fruit served whole and dismantled at the table, with individual fruit knives and a small heap of sugar on each plate.