The Normandy
Mash a small banana, and put a layer in a dish with a layer of vanilla ice cream. Add whipped cream, and decorate with a cherry.
A soda-fountain sundae written in the shorthand of a professional counterman: no quantities, no yield, because the man behind the marble was building it to order. The only thing that really needs attention is timing.
- Mashed banana browns fastMash the banana at the last moment and assemble immediately. Within ten or fifteen minutes the purée turns grey-brown from enzymatic oxidation, and no amount of whipped cream hides it. A squeeze of lemon slows it if you must work ahead.
- "A dish" means a footed sundae glass"A dish" probably means a footed sundae glass -- Fountain sundaes of the period were often served in a tulip or tall-footed glass, and the instruction to layer suggests a vessel the layers can be seen through, though the recipe specifies nothing beyond "a dish." A short tumbler works as well.
- QuantitiesOne small banana and one generous scoop of ice cream per glass reads as a single serving. The recipe specifies a small banana, so half a large supermarket banana is a reasonable substitute.
- Banana ripenessUse fruit heavily freckled and soft. Underripe banana mashes to a starchy paste and tastes green against sweet vanilla; overripe is the one thing this recipe cannot be hurt by.
- The whipped creamWhip to a soft peak rather than stiff, and sweeten lightly: a teaspoon of sugar per half cup of cream at most, since the banana and ice cream carry the sugar.
- The cherryA maraschino cherry is the likely intention: at the time that meant either a cherry preserved in maraschino liqueur or, increasingly, the American imitation cured in brine and sugar syrup. Either the modern bright-red cocktail cherry or a dark Luxardo-style one is faithful in spirit.
- Soften the ice cream slightlyStraight from a home freezer at 0F the ice cream will tear the banana layer rather than settle onto it. A few minutes at room temperature gives the plastic, spadeable texture a fountain freezer held naturally.
This comes from a Prohibition-era genre: books of soft drinks and fountain confections published as the saloon closed and the drugstore counter took over its social function. Sundaes in such books are often given proper names — The Normandy, The Alhambra, and so on — a habit in which a place name lent glamour to what was in fact banana, ice cream and a cherry. The name here is decorative rather than descriptive; Normandy is apple and cream country, and bananas had nothing to do with it. Bananas themselves were the point of the flourish: cheap and, as the Central American fruit trade grew, common enough in American cities to be a fountain staple rather than a luxury. The banana split, generally traced to Pennsylvania soda fountains in the first decade of the century, was the same impulse in a longer dish.