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Cranberry Salad (Mrs Julian S Woolf good eating)
1 qt. cranberries. 4 bananas. Mrs. Julian S. Woolf. 3 good eating apples 1 large stalk celery of water as possible then strain Cut bananas in cubes. Pare and Sweeten cranberry pulp to taste Cook cranberries in small amount through fine sieve, set aside until cold. cut apples in cubes. Cut celery fine. and pour over fruit and celery. Serve on lettuce leaf with dressing.
A raw-fruit-and-celery salad bound with sweetened cooked cranberry pulp, of the sort that filled the relish column of church cookbooks. The proportions are loose, so treat the fruit as a base and the cranberry as a dressing.
- Quantities to fill inThe original names three apples, one large stalk of celery and unspecified bananas and cranberries. A 12 oz bag of fresh cranberries and two bananas balance three apples and a full celery rib comfortably.
- Cooking the cranberries"A small amount of water" means barely enough to keep them from scorching, about 1/4 cup to a 12 oz bag. Cook covered until the skins pop, five to eight minutes, then push through a sieve.
- Sieving, not blendingForcing the pulp through a fine sieve removes the skins and gives a smooth sauce. A blender leaves flecks of skin and a duller colour, which is why the older method is worth keeping.
- Sweeten while warmSweetening -- The recipe sweetens the pulp to taste; as written this comes after the pulp has cooled, though sugar stirred in while the pulp is still hot dissolves more readily. Cranberries take roughly 3/4 to 1 cup sugar per 12 oz, tasted as you go, since the pulp should still read tart against the sweet fruit.
- Chill before combiningThe instruction to set the pulp aside until cold matters. Warm cranberry pulp poured over cut bananas and apples will soften them.
- Keeping the fruit paleCut the apples and bananas last, or toss them with a little lemon juice. Both brown quickly, and the cranberry does not go on until it is fully cold.
- The dressingThe recipe leaves 'dressing' undefined. A boiled dressing, plain mayonnaise or a sweetened whipped-cream dressing would all suit, spooned over rather than stirred in.
- YieldWith the quantities suggested above, roughly six to eight lettuce cups as a relish or side salad.
Cranberry salads multiplied in American community cookbooks in the early twentieth century, as cooks began treating the berry as something other than a boiled sauce. The combination of a tart cooked fruit pulp with raw apple, celery and banana belongs to the same impulse that produced Waldorf salad: crisp diced things bound in a sweet dressing and served on a lettuce leaf, served alongside meat rather than opening the meal. Attribution by married name, as here, was common in community and fundraising cookbooks, which often credited each contributor by her husband's initials.