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Heavenly Hash
Select twelve medium-sized oranges of good shape and color. Cut a small circular piece from the stem end of each and remove the pulp in small pieces with a spoon. To the pulp add one small can of pineapple (sliced), two ripe bananas, quartered and sliced, one-quarter pound of seeded Malaga grapes. Sweeten to taste. Fill the orange shells and garnish with candied cherries. - Miss Nellie Taylor, Rockford.
A fruit salad served in its own containers, from the era when canned pineapple was still a modest luxury. Nothing here is difficult, but the orange shells decide whether it looks like the recipe intends.
- Hollowing the shellsCut the lid from the stem end, then run a grapefruit spoon or paring knife around the inside of the membrane before scooping. Working the pulp out in segments keeps the shell wall intact; once you puncture it, the juice leaks and the shell collapses on the plate.
- Small can of pineappleA "small can" of sliced pineapple in syrup was likely one of the small flat cans of roughly 8 oz, though canned sizes varied; use about that much. Drain it, save a spoonful of the syrup for sweetening, and cut the rings into wedges so they spoon out of the orange easily.
- Malaga grapesMalagas were a large seeded table grape, most often greenish-amber though red Malagas were also sold, common before seedless varieties took over. Use 4 oz of red or green seedless grapes, halved, and skip the seeding entirely.
- Sweeten to tastePowdered sugar dissolves without grittiness in cold fruit; a tablespoon or two is usually enough, or use the reserved pineapple syrup. Taste after the fruit has sat ten minutes, since the oranges release more juice as they stand.
- Add the bananas lastSliced bananas brown and soften within an hour. Mix the oranges, pineapple and grapes ahead, chill them, and fold in the banana just before filling the shells.
- Chilling and drainingCold desserts of this kind want at least an hour in the refrigerator. Drain off excess juice before filling or the shells will overflow when the fruit settles.
- ServingTwelve oranges makes twelve portions. Steady each shell in a shallow dish or on a bed of crushed ice, and put the cut lid alongside if you want the older presentation.
"Hash" here carries its plain older sense of a chopped mixture rather than anything to do with meat, and "heavenly" was one of the period's ways of flagging a dessert as a treat; the name attached itself over the years to several different sweets, including ice creams and marshmallow-fruit salads, so recipes under this title vary considerably from book to book. What suggests a date for this particular version is the canned pineapple, which became cheaper and more widely available in American groceries as Hawaiian canneries expanded in the first decades of the century, and the Malaga grapes, a large seeded shipping grape then common on winter fruit stands. Filling hollowed citrus shells appears often in the period's entertaining cookery, giving a homemade dessert the look of a catered one without any cooking at all. The attribution to Miss Nellie Taylor of Rockford marks it as a contributed recipe, the kind gathered from readers and local cooks that gave books like this their range.