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Cheese Salad-Susan Fudge
1/2 lb. cheese. 1 level tablespoon gelatine. Juice 1 lemon. Salt, paprika and pepper to taste. 1 1/2 cups whipped cream. 1 cup boiling water in enough cold water to cover.
Grate cheese, soak gelatine and dissolve in boiling hot water. Then add cheese and stir until dissolved. Season to taste and add juice of one lemon. When cold, add whipped cream and congeal on ice. Serve on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise dressing, to which has been added juice of one lemon.
A gelatine salad of the sort that filled American luncheon tables between the wars: cheese, lemon and whipped cream set in a mould and turned out on lettuce. The instructions are compressed to the point of confusion in places, so a few readings are needed before starting.
- The hinge: keep the gelatine liquid warm, the cream coldThe grated cheese must go into the hot gelatine water while it is genuinely hot, and the whipped cream must not be folded in until the base is cool but not yet set. Cream added to a warm base deflates; cream added to a base that has begun to firm gives a lumpy, streaked mould.
- The water measurement"1 cup boiling water in enough cold water to cover" conflates two steps. Soften the gelatine in a few tablespoons of cold water until spongy, then dissolve it in 1 cup of boiling water. The cold water is for softening only, not an additional cup of liquid.
- Gelatine strengthOne level tablespoon of granulated gelatine is a little more than a modern 1/4-oz envelope, and an envelope sets about 2 cups of liquid. Between the cup of water, the lemon juice and the cream, there is more than that here, so the result is meant to be soft, sliceable at best. For a mould that unmoulds cleanly, expect to want a little more.
- What cheese was meantPlain grated cheese of this period is most likely firm American or store cheddar. Grate it as finely as possible; cheddar does not truly dissolve in water and will stay slightly granular no matter how long you stir. A soft fresh cheese disperses more completely if a smooth set is wanted.
- "Congeal on ice"This is the pre-refrigerator direction to set the mould in a pan of ice or in the icebox. Four hours in the refrigerator does the same work; overnight is better.
- SeasoningSalt is doing real work here, as gelatine and cream both dull flavour. Season the warm base more assertively than tastes right, since chilling mutes it further.
- YieldEnough for a mould of about a quart, serving perhaps six to eight as a salad course.
This recipe belongs to the peak years of the American gelatine salad, when powdered gelatine had become cheap and reliable enough that a household could set a mould without boiling calves' feet. Salads like this one were a fashionable luncheon dish of the 1910s and 1920s: cold, moulded, pale, served on a lettuce leaf with a spoonful of mayonnaise, and prized precisely because they looked composed and required no last-minute cooking. The attribution to Susan Fudge reflects the collection's practice of printing contributors' names.