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Pineapple and Banana Cocktail
Take equal parts of banana and fresh or canned pineapple; cut into small cubes and cover with lemon or pineapple juice. Serve in glasses or orange shells placed on autumn leaves or sprays of green fern.
A first-course fruit cup rather than a drink; the only real work is keeping the banana from browning and getting the fruit cold enough to be worth serving.
- "Cocktail" means the course, not the glassIn books of this era a fruit cocktail is the opening course of a meal, served here either in glasses or in orange shells. There is no alcohol in it and none is implied.
- The acid is doing a jobThe lemon or pineapple juice is not a garnish; it is what keeps the cut banana from turning grey. Toss the banana in the juice as you cut it rather than pouring the juice over at the end, and cut the pineapple first so the banana spends the least time exposed.
- Fresh pineapple and gelatinFresh pineapple contains bromelain, which breaks down protein. It matters if you plan to fold this into a gelatin mould; canned pineapple has been heated and the enzyme is inactive.
- Canned pineapple then and nowPeriod canned pineapple was commonly packed in syrup and would generally be sweeter than fruit packed in juice today. Drain it well and taste before adding any sugar, which the recipe does not call for.
- TemperatureServe it very cold. Chill the cut fruit at least an hour and chill the glasses too; left at room temperature the banana softens quickly.
- Orange shellsHalve the oranges, juice them, and cut the membrane out with a grapefruit knife. Trim a sliver off the base so the shell sits level, and scallop the rim with kitchen shears if you want the period look.
- QuantityThe recipe gives no yield. One medium banana and an equal volume of pineapple fills two to three cocktail glasses; figure about half a cup of fruit per person as a first course.
- The autumn leavesThe leaves and fern are a plate liner, not food. Use them under the glass on the service plate and keep anything toxic or sprayed off the table entirely.
Fruit cocktails entered American entertaining around the turn of the twentieth century, when reliable canned pineapple from Hawaii and year-round imported bananas made tropical fruit an everyday grocery rather than a luxury. Cook books of this kind lean heavily on presentation in their entertaining sections: the orange shell, the fern, the autumn leaf. The instruction here spends as many words on how the dish looks on the plate as on what goes in it, which is a fair picture of what the period expected of a hostess.