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Sarsaparilla Shake
Beat up the yolk of one egg and add four tablespoonfuls of sarsaparilla syrup. Fill up the glass with milk and add a little soda water.
A soda-fountain egg drink of the temperance era. Two things in it do not survive into a modern kitchen: the uncooked yolk and, in most cases, the syrup itself.
- The raw yolk is the problemThe egg is beaten in and never heated at any point; the milk and soda water are cold. A shell egg carrying Salmonella has no step in this recipe that would kill it, and the drink is then held at room temperature while it is mixed and served. This is the reason the recipe cannot be recommended as written.
- Period sarsaparilla syrupFountain sarsaparilla syrups of this period were often built on sassafras root bark, sometimes with birch and wintergreen, rather than on Smilax alone. Safrole, the principal aromatic compound in sassafras oil, was prohibited by the FDA as a food additive in 1960 after it was shown to be carcinogenic in animals. Any home-compounded syrup from untreated sassafras root is not a food ingredient today.
- What is sold as sarsaparilla nowModern bottled sarsaparilla and sarsaparilla syrups are generally flavour blends, which may draw on wintergreen (methyl salicylate), anise, vanilla and licorice, with safrole-free sassafras extract if any is used at all. The taste is in the same family as root beer rather than identical to the 1900 fountain product.
- Soda water meant a siphonSoda water meant a fountain -- "A little soda water" assumes carbonated water drawn under pressure at the counter. Bottled seltzer is the nearest equivalent.
- Glass sizeThe recipe gives no volume. Fountain glasses of the period were commonly somewhere in the region of 8 to 10 fluid ounces. Four tablespoonfuls of syrup is a quarter cup, which is a sweet drink even by soda-fountain standards. One serving.
- If you want the drinkUse a current recipe. Commercial egg creams, despite the name, contain no egg at all, and modern egg-based fountain drinks are usually built on pasteurized egg product for exactly the reason above.
Sarsaparilla began as a medicine rather than a soft drink: extracts of tropical Smilax root were sold through the nineteenth century as blood purifiers and tonics, and the flavour migrated to the soda fountain by way of the druggist's counter, where the fountain often stood. Egg drinks were a fountain staple of the same period, sold as strengthening and nourishing, which is why a yolk turns up in what is otherwise a sweet milk drink. The soda fountain grew out of the pharmacy trade, and temperance advocacy is frequently cited as one of the forces behind its spread; collections of fruit drinks, ciders and fountain mixtures were published to show that a man could be sociable without a saloon. Fountains remained a commercial fixture through the early decades of the twentieth century.