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Pineapple Lemonade
1/2 cup of pineapple juice Juice of 1 lemon 1/2 cup boiling water 1 cup ice water 2 tablespoons sugar Mix the pineapple, lemon juice and sugar, and add the boiling water. Cool, add ice-water, strain, and serve.
A single tall glass, built on the old principle of dissolving the sugar in a little boiling water before the drink is chilled.
- YieldThis makes roughly two cups of finished lemonade, or one generous tumbler over ice. Multiply straight through for a pitcher.
- Why the boiling waterThe hot water dissolves the sugar quickly and completely; in cold juice granulated sugar dissolves slowly and can be left as grit at the bottom if it is not well stirred. If you prefer, use simple syrup in place of the sugar and skip the hot step, allowing about 1/4 cup of 1:1 syrup to stand in for the 2 tablespoons of sugar.
- Pineapple juiceCanned juice works perfectly well here, though whether it or hand-pressed fruit was the likely source depends on the date of the book. Fresh-pressed juice is livelier but much sweeter or sharper depending on the fruit, so taste before adding the full two tablespoons of sugar.
- Fresh pineapple and gelatinRaw pineapple juice contains bromelain, which breaks down protein. It has no effect on a lemonade, but do not use the same fresh juice to set a gelatin dessert unless it has been boiled.
- The lemonLemon size varies, and the juice of "1 lemon" is an elastic quantity. Figure about 2 tablespoons and adjust up from there to taste.
- StrainingStrain after chilling, not before, so any pulp and pineapple fibre that settles comes out with it. A fine mesh sieve is enough; cheesecloth gives a clearer glass.
- ServingCool the mixture before the ice water goes in, or you will melt the chill out of it. The recipe says only to strain and serve; serve it promptly, and give it a stir if it has stood.
Pineapple lemonade belongs to the era when canned pineapple became a widely available pantry item in American kitchens. Canned pineapple juice as a separate product, however, was not sold on any scale until the 1930s, so the "1900s onward" dating should not be assumed without knowing the book's date. Beverage chapters in books of this period often run heavily to non-alcoholic fruit drinks -- lemonades, shrubs, fruit punches, ades thickened with egg or spiked with ginger -- which has been attributed both to temperance sympathies and to the expectation that a hostess would have something to offer callers that did not require a cellar. The practice of dissolving sugar in hot water first is ordinary confectioner's sense carried over into everyday drink-making.