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Mixed Fruit
Mix a few peaches cut in bits, juice of two oranges, two slices of pineapple picked fine, two dozen California canned cherries and one wineglass of sherry; sweeten to taste with sugar, or preferably with sugar syrup-it seems to give more delicacy-and keep the same proportions in making a larger quantity.
This is a fruit macédoine given without quantities of syrup or any freezing instruction, though the book files it under frozen desserts. The proportions are a starting ratio rather than a fixed formula.
- A wineglassIn American cookbooks of this period a wineglass is about 2 fluid ounces, a scant quarter cup. Sherry at this level is a seasoning; more will keep the mixture from setting firmly if you freeze it.
- California canned cherriesThese were canned sweet cherries in heavy syrup, often Royal Anne. Two dozen is roughly a cup drained. Jarred Morello or brandied cherries work; drain them and hold back some of their syrup for sweetening.
- Sugar syrupThe book's preference is sound, since granulated sugar dissolves slowly and incompletely in cold fruit juice and can leave a gritty edge. Simple syrup at equal weights sugar and water, boiled briefly and cooled, is the usual base; add it a spoonful at a time and taste.
- PeachesBlanch and peel them, or the skins will separate in the juice and toughen. Freestone varieties cut cleanly; canned peaches, drained, are a fair substitute out of season.
- If you actually freeze itWith no cream, egg or gelatine, this sets as a hard block of sweetened juice. Treat it as a granita: freeze in a shallow pan and rake it with a fork every 30 minutes for two to three hours.
- Chilled, not frozenThe mixture is at its best simply macerated an hour in the refrigerator and served in glasses as a fruit cup.
- YieldDepending on how many peaches you take, it makes something on the order of a quart, enough for six small glasses. Scaling up, keep the sherry proportional or it will dominate the peaches.
Mixtures of this kind were called a macédoine of fruits in nineteenth-century menu French, and by 1900 the American table had adopted them as the "fruit cup" that opened a formal dinner or, sugared and frozen, closed it. The specification of "California canned cherries" places the page in a broad period: large-scale fruit canning in California expanded rapidly in the last decades of the nineteenth century, and by the time this book was compiled a housekeeper in Boston or Chicago could reach for Pacific-coast cherries and pineapple in winter as a matter of course. The sherry is characteristic too, since fortified wine is often said to have been a common flavouring for fruit and puddings in respectable households, used in quantities small enough to pass without comment.