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Hot Pineapple Egg
Put one egg into a shaker with one tablespoonful of pineapple syrup, one tablespoonful of orange syrup, and a dash of acid phosphate. Shake well, strain into a glass, and add hot water. A grating of cinnamon may be added.
A hot soda-fountain egg drink from the era when the fountain was expected to serve winter customers as well as summer ones. The method is sound period practice, but the egg is the problem.
- The egg is never cookedA whole raw egg is shaken cold, strained, and topped with hot water from an urn. Water at drinking temperature, diluted by cold syrup and egg, will not come near the 160F needed to kill Salmonella, and the drink is served immediately rather than held. This is a raw-egg beverage in all but name.
- Why fountains got away with itRaw egg in fountain drinks was routine and unremarked at the time; the specific hazard of Salmonella in shell eggs was not yet understood. Modern shell eggs move through longer supply chains, and the risk calculus for a drink built around one uncooked egg is not the same. If you want a hot egg drink, work from a current recipe.
- Acid phosphateNot a flavouring but a souring agent: a dilute phosphoric acid solution with calcium, magnesium and potassium salts, used at fountains to give tartness without the fruit character of citrus. It is still manufactured for the cocktail trade. Nothing in a home kitchen substitutes for it exactly; lemon juice sours but tastes of lemon.
- The syrupsFountain syrups of the period were generally much heavier and sweeter than modern bottled fruit syrups, often approaching two parts sugar to one of water. Pineapple and orange syrups were built from the juice with sugar syrup, orange sometimes carrying peel oil as well.
- Shaker and strainThe original method calls for straining after shaking, which would catch any unbroken white or membrane that would otherwise show in the glass.
- Cinnamon"A grating" most likely means cinnamon taken off a whole stick rather than ground cinnamon from a tin, which would give a coarser, more aromatic dust.
History: On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the wave of non-alcoholic drink books that appeared around the arrival of national Prohibition — the title is a joke about riding the water wagon, that is, staying dry. Drinks like this one answered the saloon's hot toddy and egg flip: an egg beaten into something warm and sweet, sold as nourishment as much as refreshment, and pushed in winter when the cold-drink trade fell off. The pairing of fruit syrups with acid phosphate is characteristic of fountain dispensing of the period, which worked from a sweet base sharpened by an acid rather than a spirit sharpened by a mixer. Egg drinks of this kind were commonly presented as restorative.