The Longacre
Take a ladleful of vanilla ice cream, make a hollow in the center, and fill with peanut butter. Turn into a sherbet glass and pour over marsh-mallow cream. Dust with nutmeg.
A fountain sundae rather than a kitchen dish: it is assembled to order in a glass, and the whole thing depends on keeping the ice cream hard enough to hold its shape around the filling. Everything below is for one serving.
- A ladlefulFountain work used ladles and portion dishers in a range of sizes; a ladleful here is probably in the region of 4 oz, about half a cup, of hard ice cream. Two small scoops pressed together will do the same job.
- Sherbet glassA footed glass of about 5 to 6 oz, wider and shallower than a sundae tulip. Any small stemmed dish of that capacity works; chill it first or the ice cream slumps before it reaches the table.
- Making the hollowPress the well with the back of a spoon while the ice cream is still very firm, straight from the freezer. If it has softened at all the cavity closes up and the peanut butter simply smears.
- Peanut butter of the periodPeanut butter of this date was unstabilized, and fountain formulas sometimes call for thinning it with a little syrup or hot water so it would ladle. Modern no-stir brands are stiff and claggy by comparison; loosen a tablespoon with a teaspoon of warm cream or simple syrup so it spoons cleanly and does not freeze to a brick.
- Marshmallow creamThis is the pourable marshmallow sauce sold to fountains by the jar, not a scoop of confectionery. Jarred marshmallow creme is the closest modern equivalent, but it needs thinning to pour: warm it gently with a splash of hot water or cream until it ribbons off the spoon.
- NutmegGrate it fresh over the top at the moment of serving. Pre-ground nutmeg has almost no aromatic left and will read as dust on white sauce.
- BalanceSalted peanut butter is worth using here. The sundae is sugar on sugar, and unsalted butter under marshmallow gives you nothing to push against.
On Uncle Sam's Water Wagon belongs to the run of soft-drink and soda-fountain books that appeared as Prohibition approached. Sundae names of the period were often borrowed from theatres, hotels and streets, and Longacre is the old name of the stretch of Broadway around 42nd to 47th Streets, officially Times Square from 1904 but still called Longacre for years afterward, and preserved in the Longacre Theatre, which opened in 1913. The sundae itself reflects what was newly cheap and newly popular: commercially ground peanut butter had spread rapidly through American groceries in the first two decades of the century, and marshmallow cream was a fountain staple sold by the jar as a pouring sauce. Dusting a sweet with nutmeg was a habit carried over from an older generation of custards and egg drinks.