Fruit Salad
1/2 lb. almonds 4 oranges 1 can pineapple 3 bananas 1/2 cup French cherries 1 cup powdered sugar Blanch the almonds and grate or chop very fine; pare and slice the oranges; cut pineapple into small dice; slice the bananas. Alternate the layers of fruit with layers of sugar. Reserve the almonds for the top layer. Garnish with strawberries or other small, bright fruits; then add the following dressing and chill: 1/2 cup lemon juice 1/4 cup lemon juice 2 tablespoons sherry 2 tablespoons Maraschino liquor Or, 1/4 cup pineapple juice 1 cup granulated sugar Cook down to a syrup Grated cocoanut can be used instead of almonds; peaches and pears instead of bananas.
A layered ladies'-luncheon salad from the era when "salad" often meant something closer to dessert. The ingredient list has at least one printer's error, so read it before you shop.
- The dressing list is garbledIt calls for both 1/2 cup and 1/4 cup lemon juice, which cannot both be right; one line may have been meant as orange juice, though the book gives no way to tell. Treat it as 1/2 cup orange juice plus 1/4 cup lemon juice, or simply use about 3/4 cup mixed citrus juice with the sherry and maraschino.
- Two dressings, not oneThe "Or," introduces an alternative: 1/4 cup pineapple juice and 1 cup granulated sugar cooked down to a syrup, used instead of the citrus-and-spirits version. Cool that syrup completely before it goes over the fruit.
- French cherriesPreserved cherries in syrup, sold candied or brandied. Cocktail maraschinos or brandied cherries both work; drain them well.
- Maraschino liquorThe clear Italian cherry-stone liqueur (Luxardo, Maraska), not the syrup from a cherry jar. If you have none, kirsch is the nearest substitute.
- Canned pineappleThe recipe does not give a can size; a modern 20 oz can of chunks or slices, drained and diced, is a reasonable stand-in. Save the juice for the syrup dressing.
- The sugar is negotiableA cup of powdered sugar layered through the fruit plus a sugared dressing reflects period taste. Half that amount is plenty with modern cultivated fruit, and canned pineapple in juice needs almost none.
- AlmondsBlanching means a 60-second dip in boiling water so the skins slip off; dry them well before grating or the result is paste rather than crumb. Blanched slivered almonds, pulsed briefly, save the step.
- Bananas and timingSliced bananas brown and soften within an hour or two, so assemble close to serving — an hour in the refrigerator is enough to chill it through. If you want to make it further ahead, use the suggested peaches and pears instead.
- YieldAs written this fills a large bowl and serves roughly 8 to 10 as a salad course or light dessert.
The Gold Medal Flour Cook Book was promotional literature from the Washburn-Crosby milling company of Minneapolis, the firm that later became General Mills, and it padded its bread and cake pages with a full complement of fashionable courses. This fruit salad belongs to a distinctly American genre of the period: sweet, spirit-laced fruit compositions served as a salad course at luncheons, often on a lettuce leaf, at a time when the word "salad" covered nearly anything dressed and chilled. Its shopping list is a small monument to the new grocery trade — canned Hawaiian pineapple had become cheap and ubiquitous after the packing industry took hold there in the first decade of the century, bananas arrived year-round by refrigerated steamer, and imported maraschino and bottled French cherries signalled a hostess with a well-stocked pantry. The blithe two tablespoons of sherry and two of maraschino also date the book firmly before national Prohibition took effect in 1920, after which fruit salads in American cookbooks turned to fruit syrups.