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Pear Salad
6 pears 6 stalks celery Mayonnaise Salt and pepper 1/2 cup broken walnut-meats and stoned olives, chopped Lettuce leaves Select well-formed pears and cut off a bit of the broad end so that the pear will stand steadily on the plate. With a potato-ball cutter remove the center, leaving enough of the pear to make a thick cup. Cut the celery into dice, add broken walnut-meats and chopped olives and mix all together with mayonnaise, adding a pinch of salt and pepper. Fill the pear cups and serve on lettuce leaves.
A stuffed-fruit salad of the sort that filled American luncheon menus in the 1920s. It is straightforward, but it depends entirely on the pears standing up and staying pale.
- Choose the pear carefullyBosc or Anjou hold their shape when hollowed; Bartlett collapses once fully ripe. The fruit should be firm-ripe, giving only slightly at the neck.
- HollowingA melon baller is the modern equivalent of the potato-ball cutter. Leave a wall about half an inch thick, and take out the core and its gritty seed casing along with the flesh.
- Stop the browningThe recipe assumes speed. Brush the cut surfaces with lemon juice as you go, or the cups will be brown by the time the filling is mixed.
- The olives"Stoned" means pitted. The recipe does not say which olives; green olives in brine suit the dish, and a small amount goes a long way against the sweetness of the pear, so start with two tablespoons chopped.
- An ambiguous quantityThe half-cup measure may be intended for the walnuts alone or for the walnuts and olives together. Half a cup of walnuts with two to three tablespoons of chopped olives balances six pears well.
- MayonnaiseHomemade mayonnaise of the period was often stiffer and sharper than many jarred versions today. A squeeze of lemon will loosen and brighten commercial mayonnaise before binding the celery.
- Yield and servingSix pears, six servings, as a luncheon or first course. Assemble no more than an hour ahead and keep chilled; the celery weeps if it sits longer.