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Fruit Punch
Sufficient to serve twenty-five persons. 4 cups sugar 8 cups water 2 quarts Apollinaris 1 pineapple shredded 1 cup fruit juice 1 box strawberries hulled and cut in pieces 4 bananas cut in slices juice of 6 oranges juice of 3 lemons Boil sugar and water five minutes; add fruit, ice, Apollinaris, and water to make the punch right strength. One cup maraschino cherries may be added.
A large-format reception punch from the era when a punch bowl and a block of ice did the work now done by a dispenser and cubes. The proportions are sound; most of the updating is vocabulary.
- ApollinarisA naturally sparkling German mineral water from the Ahr valley, sold worldwide around 1900 as "the Queen of Table Waters." Any dry sparkling mineral water or club soda stands in; two quarts is 8 cups.
- The syrupFour cups sugar to eight cups water boiled five minutes gives something over two quarts of thin syrup. Cool it completely before it meets the fruit, or the strawberries and bananas will turn to mush.
- "1 cup fruit juice"Genuinely unspecified in the original. It may well have meant whatever canned or bottled juice was on hand — pineapple, grape or cherry. Choose one rather than guessing at a blend.
- A box of strawberriesA market box of the period was generally a quart, which comes to something over a pound once hulled.
- Order of assemblyMacerate the pineapple, strawberries and citrus juices in the cold syrup for an hour or two, then add the banana slices, ice and sparkling water only at the moment of serving. Banana browns within minutes and Apollinaris goes flat as fast.
- "Water to make the punch right strength"The instruction assumes tasting. Start with the syrup and juices undiluted, add the sparkling water, then thin with plain cold water until it tastes of fruit rather than sugar — the melting ice will carry it further as the party goes on.
- IceA single large block or a bowl-shaped ice ring melts far more slowly than cubes and keeps the punch from watering out. Block ice is most likely what the original had in mind.
- Maraschino cherriesIn 1907 the name still properly meant marasca cherries preserved in maraschino liqueur, though cheaper brined, dyed and flavoured imitations were already on the American market and would soon have to be labelled as imitations. Luxardo-style cherries are closer to the original sense.
- YieldAbout 25 punch cups of 5 to 6 oz. each, something over a gallon once the ice has begun to melt.
Lowney's Cook Book was compiled by Maria Willett Howard for the Walter M. Lowney Company, the Boston chocolate manufacturer, and like many manufacturer-sponsored cookbooks of the 1900s it ranged well beyond its sponsor's product into a full domestic manual. A punch like this one belongs to the age of the church social, the graduation reception and the afternoon at-home, where a large bowl of something cold and unfermented was expected hospitality; temperance sentiment was strong, and unfermented fruit-and-mineral-water punches sat alongside the older wine-and-brandy sort. The Apollinaris is a telling detail: imported German spring water was a genuine luxury import, advertised heavily in American magazines, and naming the brand rather than saying "charged water" suggests a hostess with means.