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Fruit Pyramids
On each salad plate lay a leaf of fresh lettuce, then a slice of canned pineapple, then whole slices of pared apple, orange, peach, plum or any other fruit that is in season. On the top place a maraschino cherry, and pour over all a dressing made of equal parts of lemon juice and olive oil. 4 red apples 1 grape-fruit
An assembly job rather than a cooked dish, and it stands or falls on how the fruit is cut. A few notes on the parts that no longer read clearly.
- The hinge: cut for stackingThe pyramid only holds if each layer is a flat round smaller than the one below. Use the canned pineapple ring as the base module and cut apple, orange and peach into full crosswise slices of decreasing diameter, coring as you go. Ragged wedges will slide off the lettuce.
- That trailing ingredient line"4 red apples 1 grape-fruit" does not match the method, which never mentions grapefruit. It reads like a stray ingredient line, possibly belonging to a neighbouring recipe; its relation to this one is unclear. If you take it as belonging here, four apples suggests four plates, with grapefruit segments as an alternative to the orange.
- Canned pineappleIn American cookery of this period canned pineapple was generally sold in slices packed in syrup, sweeter and softer than most fruit on the plate. Drain the rings well and blot them, or the syrup will thin the dressing.
- The dressing is not a vinaigretteEqual parts lemon juice and olive oil, with no sugar, salt or mustard, is far sharper than the usual three-to-one oil ratio. Whisk it just before serving; with nothing to emulsify it, it will separate quickly.
- BrowningApple and peach darken within minutes of slicing. Cut them last and turn the slices in a little of the lemon juice from the dressing before building the plates.
- Maraschino cherriesThe original cherry was preserved in maraschino liqueur and was a genuine flavouring. The modern supermarket version is brined, bleached and dyed, and contributes colour only. A cherry in real maraschino or a fresh one in season is closer to the intent.
- LettuceThe recipe asks only for "a leaf of fresh lettuce." A cup-shaped leaf, such as butterhead, holds the stack; a flat romaine leaf gives the pyramid nothing to sit in.
- Yield and timingOne plate per person, so scale by guest count. Build these no more than fifteen minutes ahead and keep them cold; the fruit weeps and the lettuce wilts under the acid dressing.
Fruit salads served on lettuce belong to a distinct moment in American cooking, roughly 1890 to 1930, when the salad course expanded well beyond greens and when canned pineapple became cheap and reliable — Hawaiian canneries scaled up sharply in the first decades of the twentieth century, and sliced pineapple in syrup turned up in salads, desserts and garnishes across household cookbooks of the period. The appeal was visual as much as gastronomic: a stacked, tiered arrangement on an individual plate showed that food had been composed rather than merely served, which is often said to have mattered in a period when the plated salad course was taken as a mark of a well-run table. The maraschino cherry finial and the lettuce leaf base are the era's standard punctuation, and the loose-leaf format of Mrs. Fryer's book suits a recipe that is really a template to be filled with whatever fruit the season offers.