The Calumet
Over a dishful of strawberry ice cream, pour two tablespoonfuls of marshmallow cream. Add chopped walnuts and whipped cream. Decorate with a strawberry.
A soda-fountain assembly rather than a cooked dish, so the only real variables are the marshmallow cream and the speed of the build.
- Marshmallow creamThe recipe has it poured by the tablespoonful, so it must have been loose enough to pour; jarred marshmallow crème today is often stiffer. Warm it gently, or thin it with a spoonful of hot water or cream, so it drapes rather than sits in a lump.
- Quantity and yield"A dishful" is not a fixed measure and the recipe names no vessel; as written this is one serving.
- Whipped creamThe recipe does not say to sweeten it, and the marshmallow already carries sugar. Whip to soft peaks; anything stiffer will not settle onto the marshmallow properly.
- WalnutsThe recipe asks only for chopped walnuts; chop them coarsely. If you choose to toast them, cool them completely first, as warm nuts will slump the cream.
- Order of workHave the glass chilled, the nuts chopped and the cream whipped before the ice cream leaves the freezer. The whole point of a sundae is that it reaches the table before the marshmallow has melted a channel through the scoop.
- The strawberryThe recipe says only to decorate with a strawberry; set it on at the last moment. Out of season, a good frozen berry thawed and drained is closer to the intent than a pale fresh one.
Sundaes like this one belong to the golden age of the American soda fountain, and this collection ties them explicitly to Prohibition: the title On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon is a joke about going dry, and the book's business is showing that a drugstore counter could sell pleasure without alcohol. Fountains had been building elaborate ice-cream dishes since the 1890s, and trade lore holds that soda men competed by naming their creations after clubs, hotels, teams and local landmarks. "Calumet" is the French term for the ceremonial pipe of North American Indian nations, and by 1919 it was attached to a great many American things — a Chicago club, a baking powder, a town in Michigan — so the name here is best read as period branding rather than as a clue to the recipe. What the formula records is a house style: soft white marshmallow over pink ice cream, nuts for texture, and a single berry to tell the customer what flavour they had ordered.