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Fruit Fillip
Cut four large oranges in two and lift out carefully with an orange spoon the sections of fruit. Free the inside of each orange shell from skin and prepare the following fruit salad: The pulp of the oranges, kept as whole as possible, two bananas cut in fine dice, three tablespoons of brandied cherries cut in halves, half a cup of Malaga grapes, halved and seeded, four tablespoons of powdered sugar; over these pour two tablespoons of sherry and one teaspoon of rum.
Allow this to stand on the ice half an hour, then fill each half of the orange with fillip. Serve on green leaves arranged on small plates.
A fruit cup served back in its own orange shells, from an era when a spoonful of sherry counted as dessert seasoning. Little needs changing, but a few of the terms and ingredients have shifted.
- Powdered sugarIn a book of this period this generally means finely ground granulated sugar, what is now sold as superfine or caster sugar. Modern confectioners' sugar contains cornstarch and will cloud the juices; superfine dissolves clean.
- Orange spoonA narrow, pointed, often serrated spoon from the standard flatware service. A grapefruit spoon does the same job, or cut around each membrane with a small paring knife and lift the sections out with your fingers.
- Malaga grapesLarge seeded table grapes, a name associated with Spain but also grown in California, once a winter fruit and no longer common in shops. Any firm red or green grape works; if you use seedless, halve them anyway so they take up the syrup.
- Brandied cherriesWhole cherries put up in brandy and sugar, not the bright red maraschino cherry of a cocktail garnish. Look for cocktail cherries packed in syrup and liqueur rather than the dyed kind, which are far sweeter and will throw the balance off.
- Stand on the iceHalf an hour in the refrigerator. Do not stretch it much further: the bananas darken and go soft, and the orange sections break down into juice, which is precisely what the recipe is trying to avoid.
- Keeping the sections wholeThis is the hinge of the dish. The pleasure is in intact orange segments held in a lightly boozy syrup, so free the sections from their membranes before you cut anything else, and fold the mixture rather than stirring it.
- Preparing the shellsCut the oranges across the equator, not through the stem end, and shave a thin sliver from the base of each half so it sits level on the plate. Scrape the shells clean of pith so nothing bitter meets the fruit.
- The green leavesPurely a serving bed, in the manner of the period. Use unsprayed lemon, bay or mint leaves, or a small doily of greenery; they are not meant to be eaten.
- Yield and the alcoholEight filled halves, enough for eight servings or four generous ones. The sherry and rum are never cooked off, so leave them out for anyone who should not have alcohol; a little orange juice with a squeeze of lemon keeps the fruit moist.
A fillip is a flick of the finger, and by extension anything that gives a small sharp stimulus, which is exactly what the sherry and rum are doing to an otherwise plain plate of winter fruit. Dishes of this kind fill the cold dessert chapters of American household cookery around the turn of the twentieth century: no cooking, no ice cream freezer, just good fruit served back in its own skin and dressed with a spoonful of spirits. The ingredients also mark the season and the budget. Oranges were an ordinary winter fruit, but imported Malaga grapes and bottled brandied cherries were more of a winter indulgence, and serving each portion in a scooped orange shell on a bed of leaves was the sort of table effect that a comfortable household was expected to manage without a professional cook.