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Pineapple Lemonade
Pare, eye and grate a large ripe pineapple; add the strained juice of four lemons and a syrup made by boiling together for four minutes one pound of sugar and one pint of water. When cold add one quart of water; strain and ice.
A straightforward syrup-and-fruit lemonade that needs only a few notes on quantities and equipment.
- The syrup is the hingeOne pound of sugar (about 2 1/4 cups) boiled four minutes with one pint (2 cups) water gives a light syrup, not a candy stage. Four minutes at a rolling boil is enough to dissolve and clarify; longer will thicken it and throw the balance of the finished drink.
- "Pare, eye and grate"Cut off the rind, dig out the remaining brown eyes with the tip of a knife or a channel knife, then grate the flesh on the coarse side of a box grater. A food processor pulsed to a coarse pulp does the same job; avoid pureeing it smooth, which makes the later straining slow and cloudy.
- Fresh pineapple only, if you strainCanned pineapple works but is already sweetened and cooked, so cut the sugar syrup by about a third and taste. Fresh is what the recipe assumes, and its acidity is part of the drink.
- Lemons then and nowFour lemons might give anywhere from about 1/2 to 3/4 cup juice, and older varieties were often smaller than today's. Modern supermarket lemons vary widely, so measure rather than count.
- YieldAbout 2 to 2 1/2 quarts finished, or eight to ten glasses. The original gives no serving count.
- Straining and icingStrain through a fine sieve, pressing the pulp to get the juice out, or through a double layer of cheesecloth for a clear drink. "Ice" here most likely means chill thoroughly rather than pour over cubes; ice added directly dilutes a drink already carrying a quart of water.
- Make it ahead, but not far aheadFresh pineapple juice loses its brightness on standing; best within a few hours of chilling.
Pineapple was a luxury in American households well into the nineteenth century and became more widely available only after steamship routes brought fresh fruit from the Caribbean and the Bahamas within reach in the 1880s and 1890s. A whole ripe pineapple was by then affordable enough to grate into a pitcher for a summer party but still novel enough to be named in the title of a drink. The method itself is older than the fruit's availability: boiled sugar syrup rather than granulated sugar stirred into cold liquid was standard practice for punches and lemonades, since sugar dissolves poorly in cold water and a keeping syrup could be made in advance. Good Housekeeping, founded in 1885 and much concerned with the well-run middle-class household, printed a great many such beverages in the years when temperance sentiment made non-alcoholic party drinks a subject of real interest.