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Pineapple and Cucumber Salad
1 can pineapple chunks. 1 large cucumber. 3 lemons. 1 box gelatine. 1 cup water. 1 cup sugar.
Cut pineapple in one-half-inch squares. Cut cucumber in cubes. Mix lightly together. Soak gelatin in cup water. Put juice from pineapple and lemons on with cup sugar, boil five minutes, add gelatin. When dissolved strain and set aside to cool. When this begins to set, add cucumber and pineapple. Use mould and set on ice. When ready to serve turn out on lettuce and serve with whipped cream and lemon. One green pepper cut fine and one-half pound green grapes may be added to this mixture.
A molded gelatin salad from the era when the salad course meant something set in a mold and turned out on lettuce. Two things decide whether it works: the amount of gelatine and the fact that the pineapple is canned.
- Canned pineapple is not optionalFresh pineapple contains bromelain, which digests gelatin and leaves the mold soupy. Canned fruit has been heated enough to destroy the enzyme, which is why the recipe specifies a can. If you want fresh pineapple, simmer it first.
- "1 box gelatine"A box of granulated gelatine in this period typically held around an ounce, roughly four of today's quarter-ounce envelopes, though package sizes varied. That is more than the two and a half to three cups of liquid here needs; two envelopes (about 1/2 oz, 14 g) will unmold cleanly without turning rubbery.
- Liquid accountingOne cup water for softening, the drained pineapple syrup (about a cup from a standard can), and the juice of three lemons (roughly 1/2 cup) comes to around 2 1/2 cups. Top up with water if your can is short so the gelatine ratio stays predictable.
- Do not boil the gelatineBoil the juice and sugar five minutes, then take it off the heat before stirring in the softened gelatine. Prolonged boiling weakens the set.
- SugarA full cup on top of sweetened canned syrup makes a dessert rather than a salad. Half a cup suits modern palates, and a pinch of salt sharpens the cucumber.
- "Set on ice"An icebox instruction. Refrigerate 4 hours or until firm; overnight is safer for a large mold. Add the fruit and cucumber only when the jelly is thick enough to hold them suspended, or everything floats to the top.
- UnmoldingOil the mold lightly or rinse it with cold water first. Dip the base in warm water for a few seconds, then invert onto the lettuce.
- Yield and servingA quart mold serves six to eight as a side salad. The recipe specifies only "whipped cream and lemon"; served alongside a salad course the cream reads as a dressing rather than a dessert topping.
- Green pepper and grapesThe optional additions push it toward a savory salad. Seed and halve the grapes; a whole green pepper cut fine will dominate, so start with half.
Mary A. Wilson wrote a cookery column from Philadelphia for the Public Ledger and published this book in 1920, at the height of the American molded-salad vogue. Powdered gelatine sold in boxed envelopes had spared cooks the labor of boiling calves' feet for hours, though the jelly still had to be soaked and chilled, and the result was a whole genre of dishes like this one: sweet fruit, a raw vegetable, and a whipped-cream dressing served as a salad course rather than a dessert. The combination of cucumber with pineapple and lemon looks odd now, but it follows the period's logic that a salad should be cool, pale and translucent, and that the mold itself was part of the appeal on a summer table.