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Mixed Fruit Cocktail
6 large oranges 1 banana 2 slices pineapple Juice of 1 lemon Sugar Slice off tops of the oranges and scoop out the inside, being careful not to break the inside white skin of the orange-peel. Put the orange cups in a bowl of ice-water. Cut in small pieces the banana and pineapple, mix these with the orange pulp cut in small pieces and the lemon-juice, sweeten to taste, and then fill the orange shells. Set each one in a small bowl, filled with crushed ice. The mixed fruit pulp that remains after the orange skins have been filled may be kept in the refrigerator and served as sauce with ice-cream or used in any other way that circumstances suggest. Fruit cocktails may be made from mixtures of almost any fruits, canned or fresh. As a rule, combinations of a sweet and a sour fruit are most piquant in flavor.
A straightforward cold first course whose only real technique is hollowing the oranges cleanly. Nothing here needs cooking, so the work is all in the knife and the chilling.
- Hollowing the orangesCut the tops about a third of the way down and work a grapefruit spoon or thin paring knife between the flesh and the membrane, keeping the white inner skin intact so the cup does not leak. A shallow slice off the bottom of each orange keeps it upright.
- Ice-water soakThe recipe does not say how long; a short soak of a quarter-hour or so is enough to firm the peel and keep the cups from going limp. Drain them upside down before filling.
- "2 slices pineapple"Presumably two crosswise rings, whether cut from a whole fruit or taken from a can, which is how pineapple was most often sold sliced. If using canned, fruit packed in juice rather than heavy syrup keeps the sweetening under your control.
- SugarThe amount is left open because the fruit varies. Start with a teaspoon or two of superfine sugar for the whole mixture, stir, and taste after five minutes once it has dissolved.
- Lemon juiceBeyond flavor, it keeps the banana from browning. Cut the banana last and toss it in the juice immediately.
- Serving coldThe nest of crushed ice is doing real work with fruit that is meant to be eaten very cold. Assemble no more than an hour ahead; banana softens and pineapple weeps if it stands longer.
- YieldSix oranges, six servings, with some mixed pulp left over as the recipe anticipates.
- SubstitutionsThe closing note is sound guidance: pair a sweet fruit with a sharp one. Grapefruit sections, sliced strawberries, seedless grapes or diced melon all work in place of the pineapple.
Fruit cocktails appeared on American menus around the turn of the twentieth century as an opening course, and are often said to have taken their name from the alcoholic cocktail that preceded a formal dinner; a temperance motive is frequently claimed but is hard to document. Serving them in the hollowed shell of the fruit itself, set in crushed ice, belongs to the same era's enthusiasm for presentation without expense, and similar treatments appear in period cookbooks with grapefruit and melon as well as oranges. Canned pineapple from Hawaiian packers was widely available by the 1920s, which helped make a mixed cocktail like this a year-round dish. The closing advice that the leftover pulp be served as a sauce with ice-cream is characteristic of the book's household economy.